Anti-polio campaign starts

Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit has expressed confidence that the government can administer free polio vaccines to all Filipino children below five years old to avert a renewed threat of the crippling disease.

"I am 100 percent confident that the mutant polio virus will be completely wiped out as planned," Dayrit said yesterday, the first day of a nationwide "Balik Patak Kontra Polio" campaign spearheaded by the Department of Health.

The first leg runs Feb. 2-8, and a follow-up drive is slated March 2-8.

Health workers and volunteers knocked on doors in remote villages and pounded the streets in the metropolis to administer the OPVs to children in the affected age group to immunize them from the mutant strain of the virus.

Poliomyelitis, or polio, is an acute viral disease. It often leads to permanent disability and deformity.

"There is no stopping us in eradicating this dreaded disease that can cripple the future leaders of the country," Dayrit stressed.

Health workers from the DOH, local government units, support people from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Rotary International and other non-government health groups and organizations were mobilized yesterday for the first leg of the campaign.

Vaccination teams did the rounds of homes all over the country to administer "house to house" the OPV drops to the children. Despite the door-to-door approach, "Patak" centers were still put up in most barangays to ensure maximum access of the OPVs to children.

Dayrit explained that the polio virus they are now fighting was a mutated form of the wild polio virus. A weakened strain of the virus contained in vaccines administered to children worldwide in the 1990s had recently mutated into another strain as strong and lethal as the wild one.

President Arroyo ordered the vaccination drive following the discovery of three new cases last year in the Cagayan de Oro City and in Laguna and Cavite, a year after the WHO declared the country polio-free. Paralysis had already developed in two of the children.

Dayrit said while "mop-up" operations in the three provinces have already been conducted, the anti-polio campaign is to ensure the country keeps its polio-free status.

Health officials stressed the vaccine must be administered to all the children within a brief period to ensure the virus does not spread to un-vaccinated children where it can mutate further.

Dayrit described the start of the campaign yesterday as "smooth and orderly," and expressed hope that all goes well in the next few days so that all children below five years get the OPVs.