EDITORIAL - Disease priority area

The country is now rated investment grade and the economy is performing better than many others in Asia, but there are still too many indicators that the benefits of growth aren’t reaching the masses. A recent report from the World Health Organization is an example. A WHO study showed that the Philippines is lagging behind many developing countries including some of the poorest in Africa in eliminating maternal and neo-natal tetanus or MNT.

A vaccine against MNT costing about $2 has been available for some time, with over 118 million women of child-bearing age vaccinated in 52 countries since 1999. Under the WHO’s MNT Elimination Initiative, 59 countries including the Philippines were classified as priority areas. Today the Philippines is one of 28 countries where the potentially fatal but preventable disease has not been eradicated, according to the WHO report.

Infants born in unhygienic conditions, including those whose umbilical cords are cut or the bumps swabbed with unsterilized materials, are the ones most susceptible to MNT. This is an affliction of the poor, but many of the 59 priority countries have managed to eliminate the disease, including Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Congo, Iraq, Liberia, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe. In Southeast Asia, even Myanmar, Timor Leste and Vietnam have eliminated MNT.

The Philippines remains on the priority list together with Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.

It will take time, and more than one presidency, to significantly reduce poverty in this country. But it is possible to improve sanitation and hygiene in public health centers, where infants have died of sepsis in overcrowded wards. It is also possible to promote hygienic practices in underdeveloped areas where pregnant women have no access to government health centers.

And it is not impossible to speed up 100 percent coverage of the MNT vaccination program. As other developing countries have shown, the success of the program does not need to wait for the eradication of poverty. What it needs is efficient implementation.