The Philippines’ health department announced today that polio has resurfaced, 19 years after the World Health Organization said it was eradicated in the country.
A statement released by the Department of Health (DOH) said that they have discovered a 3-year-old girl from Lanao del Sur province who got sick from the debilitating infectious disease. Another suspected case of polio has also been discovered but the bureau is still waiting for confirmation. At the same time, poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples taken from Manila and Davao.
In response to this, the DOH said they are preparing a series of oral polio vaccinations for children under the age of 5 starting next month. The DOH will also work with its partners to continue its surveillance in different parts of the country to determine if poliovirus is present in those areas.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said in the statement, “We strongly urge parents, health workers, and local governments to fully participate in the synchronized polio vaccination. It is the only way to stop the polio outbreak and to protect your child against this paralyzing disease.”
Duque said that the average polio vaccination rate in the country is at 66 to 68 percent, lower than the ideal rate of 95 percent to ensure herd immunity, reported Rappler. Aside from getting children vaccinated, he also reminded people to practice good personal hygiene by washing their hands, cooking food thoroughly, using toilets (as opposed to urinating and defecating in public places), and drinking clean water.
Parents have reportedly become fearful of vaccination due to the controversy surrounding Dengvaxia, an anti-dengue vaccine now banned in the country. It was included in the government’s vaccination program in 2016 and some 800,000 school children were immunized with it. In 2017, Public Attorney’s Office chief Persida Acosta alleged that Dengvaxia had caused hundreds of children to die, a claim rejected by many doctors, including Duque. The vaccine scare caused many parents to not get their children immunized, which led to a measles outbreak earlier this year and a national dengue epidemic that started last month.
There is no cure for polio. Its symptoms include vomiting, abdominal pain, constipation, fever, and lethargy. A small number of cases lead to paralysis.
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