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 A five-year-old boy in Laguna, south of the capital Manila, tested
positive for the polio virus, the health department said, the second
case this week after a three-year-old girl was confirmed to be
infected on Monday in a province about 1,400 km (870 miles) away.
Health officials appealed to parents and care givers of children to
take part in the government's polio vaccination programme, which
comes as the Philippines grapples to tackle twin outbreaks of dengue
and measles that have killed more than 1,000 people since January,
most of them children.
"The polio vaccinations happen all year round, but our coverage
dropped for the past five years," Rolando Enrique Domingo, an
undersecretary of the Department of Health, told Reuters.
"We've learned our lesson. It is time to move on and really start
vaccinating all kids and make sure we sustain this every year."
The polio virus was detected in the sewage systems of Davao in a
nearby province two months ago, and in Tondo, a rundown area of
Metro Manila notorious for slum communities, Domingo said.
Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan are the last three countries where
the disease is endemic. The last known case in the Philippines had
been in 1993, the World Health Organization says.
Graphic:
https://graphics.reuters.com/
PHILIPPINES-POLIO/0100B2BP1EL/HEALTH-POLIO.jpg
Immunisation coverage in the Philippines is at 70%, below the
recommended rate of 95%, Domingo said, as trust in vaccines
declines.
The boy who tested positive in Laguna has been discharged from
hospital already, officials said on Friday. The other case was
confirmed on Monday and reported on Thursday in Lanao del Sur, one
of the country's poorest provinces.
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Vaccination teams will aim to administer polio drops to every child
younger than five, he added.
There is no cure for polio, which invades the nervous system and can
cause irreversible paralysis within hours, but it can be prevented
with vaccines.
The virus spreads rapidly among children, especially in unsanitary
conditions in underdeveloped or war-torn regions where healthcare
access is limited.
Children nationwide are at risk as long as a single child remains
infected, the United Nations agency for children, UNICEF, has said.
The Philippines has faced a challenge recently in convincing parents
to vaccinate children after it scrapped a dengue immunisation
programme using Sanofi's Dengvaxia in late 2017, following its
linkage to child deaths.
More than 800,000 children received the vaccine. The records of 119
dead children are being examined to determine if Dengvaxia was to
blame, a panel of medical experts said in March.
The inquiry continues and Sanofi has repeatedly said its vaccine is
safe.
A vaccine campaign started in August in the historic heart of Manila
will be expanded to cover more than 5 million children and go
nationwide next year, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said in a
speech on Friday.
(Additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin
Petty, Clarence Fernandez & Kim Coghill)
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