DOH resumes anti-polio campaign in Mindanao, selected Luzon provinces

July 20, 2020

The Department of Health (DOH) resumed Monday the anti-polio immunization campaign selecting Mindanao and 10 other selected provinces in Luzon.

In a statement, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said: "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."

"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 until August 2 for all children under 5 years old, while children under 10 years old in selected areas in Mindanao will get receive polio drops.

The polio immunization campaigns for children under 5 years old also began Monday in a "phased approach" in all seven provinces in Central Luzon, namely Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, and Zambales.

In August, the anti-polio drive will take place in Laguna, Cavite, and Rizal.

The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomed this.

"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 Rabindra Abeyasinghe.

A polio outbreak in the Philippines was announced last September 2019, after  a confirmed case in a three-year-old girl in Lanao del Sur, and detection of polioviruses from the waterways of the National Capital Region (NCR).

Since then, fifteen children have been confirmed to have polio with the cases  in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Soccsksargen, Central Luzon, and Calabarzon.

The DOH launched the anti-polio campaign in Mindanao and the Metro Manila, which has reached 4.5 million children. DMS