AFTER being put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Health’s anti-polio immunization campaign, “Sabayang Patak Kontra Polio,” resumed yesterday in Mindanao and 10 provinces in Luzon.
“Continuous implementation of polio response amid the present health crisis we are facing is important as this will prevent not only the debilitating effects of the disease but also interrupt the transmission during a pandemic,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said in a statement.
“Polio is a vaccine-preventable disease and we cannot let our gains over the years go to waste by deprioritizing our polio response,” he added.
The DOH said that the campaign will run in the whole of Mindanao until August 2 for all children under five years. Children under 10 years in selected areas in Mindanao will also be covered by the immunization drive.
In Luzon, the immunization drive for children under 5 years old began in a “phased approach” in all seven provinces in Central Luzon, namely Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, and Zambales.
Come August, the campaign will also resume in the provinces of Laguna, Cavite, and Rizal in the Calabarzon region.
The World Health Organization welcomed the resumption of the anti-polio drive.
“We have to remember that the polio outbreak is not over. So it is critical that we continue this life-saving work of immunizing our children against this debilitating disease, while responding to COVID-19,” said WHO Representative in the Philippines Dr Rabindra Abeyasinghe.
The DOH declared a polio outbreak in September last year after recording a confirmed case involving a three-year-old girl in Lanao del Sur, and the detection of polio viruses in the waterways of the National Capital Region. Since then, 15 more children have been confirmed with polio in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Soccsksargen, Central Luzon, and Calabarzon regions.
This prompted the DOH to launch the anti-polio campaign in Mindanao and the Metro Manila, which has reached 4.5 million children.
Polio is a highly-infectious disease that affects mainly young children, and is transmitted person-to-person primarily through the fecal-to-oral route because of poor sanitation and hygiene practices.
Once in the intestine, the poliovirus multiplies and can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis or even death.
With the resumption of the immunization program amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the DOH and the WHO called on parents and healthcare workers strictly adhere to “infection prevention and control protocols, as we cannot afford to overwhelm our health system with another outbreak.”
“To the health workers as well as the parents, caregivers and the children participating in the campaign: Be vigilant in practicing the preventive measures such as frequent hand hygiene, physical distancing and wearing of masks during planning, implementing and evaluating the polio response,” said Abeyasinghe.
