Reemergence of polio in the Philippines
The Department of Health says a one-year-old boy from Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija is the Philippines' 17th polio case.
Breaking: DOH says 1-year-old boy from Cabanatuan City is the country's 17th polio case. @PhilippineStar
— sheila crisostomo (@shecrisostomo) February 15, 2020
The chief of the Maguindanao Integrated Provincial Health Office has confirmed that there are seven more new polio cases in the province.
Dr. Elizabeth Samama says health workers have recorded one case each in Maguindanao’s adjoining Shariff Saydona Mustapha, Rajah Buayan, Datu Piang, Datu Hofer, Datu Odin Sinsuat, Datu Abdullah Sangki and Datu Anggal Midtimbang towns.
Samama says health workers are now attending to the seven poliomyelitis patients, whose ages range from between eight months to four years old. — The STAR/John Unson
The Department of Health said 26 out of 142 environmental samples collected and tested from eight regions yielded polio virus.
Twenty-five of the samples were from the National Capital Region while one was from Davao City.
— with reports from The STAR/Sheila Crisostomo
The Department of Health confirms three new polio cases in Mindanao, raising to seven the total number of cases in the country.
— with reports from The STAR/Sheila Crisostomo
The Department of Health has confirmed that a four-year-old girl in Datu Piang, Maguindanao is the third case of polio in the Philippines, News5 reports.
The resurgence of polio comes after the Philippines was declared polio-free nearly two decades ago.
Taguig topped the local government units in the National Capital Region in its implementation of the government's "Sabayang Patak kontra Polio" (SPV) campaign, the city's public information office says.
"On the 11th day of the 14-day program, Taguig received a rating of 102 percent, snatching the highest score among the cities and municipality of NCR. It successfully vaccinated a total number of 96,866 children in its vicinity," the city says, adding the data was validated by the Department of Health and the World Health Organization.
The Ministry of Health of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (MOH-BARMM) will conduct a mass polio immunization campaign in Marawi City, the Bureau of Public Information says.
The campaign comes after the confirmation of a poliovirus case in a three-year-old girl in Lanao del Sur last month.
MOH-BARMM Information Officer Saida Diocolano-Ali says the immunization campaign will be conducted on October 14 –27, and will cover children up to five years old.
The vaccines will be administered for free.
The World Health Organization issues a reminder that all children younger than five need to receive vaccination against polio, which the Department of Health found to have reoccurred in the Philippines years after it was supposed to be eradicated.
Physician Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the WHO representative in the Philippines, tells ANC that the viruses appear to have been circulating sometime before 2015 in the country.
The DOH links the reemerge of polio to the renewed fears of parents over vaccines, influenced by the controversy over Dengvaxia, the dengue vaccine, last year.
The Department of Health reported last week that the near-extinct disease of polio suddenly reappeared in the Philippines. This is a thread on the issue.
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