BY LESLIE ANN AQUINO
After being put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Health (DoH) with support from the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has resumed its “Sabayang Patak Kontra Polio” campaign to combat the poliovirus outbreak in the country.
In a statement, the DoH said the next phase of the “Sabayang Patak Kontra Polio” campaign in the whole of Mindanao started Monday, July 20 and will last until August 2, 2020 for children under five years old.
It added that children under 10 years old in selected areas in Mindanao will also receive polio drops.
New polio immunization campaigns for children under five years old also started Monday in a phased approach in Region 3 (Central Luzon) and in the provinces of Laguna, Cavite and Rizal in Region 4A in August.
A highly infectious disease that mainly affects young children, who have not completed their vaccination schedules, polio is transmitted from person-to-person primarily through the fecal-to-oral route resulting from poor sanitation and hygiene practices, and less frequently through contaminated food or water.
Once in the intestine, the poliovirus multiplies and it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis or even death.
Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III explained that the continuous implementation of polio response amid the present health crisis the country is facing is important as this will prevent not only the debilitating effects of the disease but also interrupt the transmission during a pandemic.
“Polio is a vaccine-preventable disease and we cannot let our gains over the years go to waste by deprioritizing our polio response. It is imperative for parents and caregivers to have their children vaccinated, while strictly adhering to infection prevention and control protocols, as we cannot afford to overwhelm our health system with another outbreak,” he said. (Leslie Ann Aquino)
