Anti-polio drive in full swing

SAN FERNANDO, La Union — Get moving.

Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit has urged personnel of the Department of Health (DOH) to speed up the administering of oral polio vaccines (OPV) in their areas during the second leg of the "Balik Patak Kontra Polio" that started over the weekend.

It will end on Friday.

Dayrit said he issued the call to avoid problems encountered in the Feb. 2-8 first leg of the campaign during which DOH regional offices failed to meet their timetable because they were slow in their "door-to-door" campaign.

Despite the snags, however, the DOH posted a 98-percent success rate in the first leg of the drive.

The second leg started Saturday with vaccination teams of the different DOH regional offices doing the rounds to give follow-up OPV drops to children below five years old.

Dayrit, along with representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund and Rotary Club International, was in this Northern Luzon province last Saturday to inspect the house-to-house anti-polio campaign.

It was learned that Region I, which includes the provinces of La Union, Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte, had posted a "low" 95 percent immunization rate last February.

Calling on DOH Region I personnel, Dayrit stressed the need for the people to intensify their vaccination efforts to effect their goal to reach a 100 percent immunization rate this month.

He also urged parents to make sure that their children who are targets of the campaign get the follow-up drops.

"It is important that they play their part in our country’s effort to maintain our polio-free status," Dayrit said. The WHO certified the Philippines as polio-free three years ago.

The government slated the anti-polio campaign after three polio cases turned up in the provinces of Laguna and Cavite and Cagayan de Oro City last year.

The three cases were said to have been caused by a mutant virus from the "weakened" strain of polio virus contained in the vaccine administered to Filipino children in the ’90s to combat the then "wild polio virus" global scourge.

Anti-polio vaccines were already administered in the three areas last December. To ensure that the mutant polio virus does not spread to other provinces, the government launched the "Balik Patak Kontra Polio" campaign.

The WHO noted that the resurgence of polio in countries already declared free of the disease was rare.