EDITORIAL – Flawed campaign

The dreaded polio is back in the Philippines with the Department of Health declaring an outbreak of the disease in the country after almost two decades after being certified free of it by the World Health Organization.

Latest DOH records show there were at least two cases of polio found in the country since last month. The emergence of the disease was first discovered in a three-year-old girl from Lanao del Sur. The girl has been paralyzed by the disease, which was confirmed September 14. The second case was discovered in a five-year-old boy from Laguna over the weekend.

Amid the polio scare, the health department has started a polio vaccination campaign in Manila late last month. Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said Tondo has signs of the disease based on the environmental sample.

As the vaccination campaign shifts to other areas in the National Capital Region, Davao, Lanao del Sur, Central Luzon, and Calabarzon in the coming weeks, Cebu is also heightening its fight against the disease, whose last case in the country was eliminated in 2000.

Cebu Provincial Health Officer Christina Giango is now urging parents to have their children immunized during mass vaccinations in their areas. "Atong giawhag ang mga ginikanan…nga ila g’yung dad-on ilang mga anak para magpa-immunize," she said.

The PHO, urging Cebuanos to take advantage of the immunization because poliovirus still does not have a cure, expects a 95-percent polio vaccination rate this year against only 67.72 percent last year.

It was not clear whether or not the two latest victims had received anti-polio vaccine. What is clear is that the feared disease that had affected thousands of children in the country decades ago has returned.

Perhaps, health authorities are now wondering what went wrong in the fight against polio. The fact that the disease has reemerged in the country after nearly 20 years only shows flaws in the campaign against it.