EDITORIAL - Immunize your children

For many years children stricken with polio were a pitiful sight. Also called infantile paralysis, the viral disease caused permanent damage to muscles and nerves, disabling millions of children until Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine in the 1950s. Immunization in the Philippines started shortly thereafter, although it would take about four decades before the country would be declared polio-free.

Unfortunately, a weakened strain of the virus that was used in the vaccines administered worldwide in the previous decade has mutated into a strain as lethal as the first one. Worried health officials are now monitoring the mutant strain, which has been blamed for three new polio cases that turned up last year in Cavite, Laguna and Cagayan de Oro City. Health officials fear that similar mutant strains may turn up in other countries that have also been declared polio-free.

The Department of Health has scheduled a two-phased immu-nization campaign that aims to vaccinate an estimated 12 million children aged five years or younger against the mutant polio strain. The immunization program will be undertaken in cooperation with the World Health Organization, United Nations Children’s Fund, Rotary International and other civic groups as well as local governments. To make sure no child will be missed, health personnel will be knocking on doors, asking parents to have their children immunized. The oral vaccine is free and the DOH has 14.5 million doses ready for the first phase of the campaign. More vaccines are being prepared for the second phase.

The first week-long "Balik Patak Contra Polio" starts today. All children up to 59 months old must be immunized, including those who have already received the original anti-polio vaccine. There will be another one on March 2-8, but it will be good for parents to have their children immunized as soon as possible. There’s a virus going around whose effects can lead to permanent disability. Health officials are very worried; parents should be even more so.