MANILA – The public’s fear for vaccination was among the possible reasons for the resurgence of polio disease in the country after nearly two decades, the Department of Health (DOH) said.
DOH secretary Francisco Duque III said the average polio vaccination from last year until early this year has been subpar from its target of 95-percent vaccination rate.
“The average polio vaccination has been at 66 to 68 percent,” Duque said. “It is really insufficient. We need 95-percent vaccination rate of protection or coverage.”
“The Dengvaxia issue was one of the several factors that led to low vaccine confidence on our people in the village immunization program and increase in vaccine hesitancy among our mothers,” he added.
The Philippine government declared polio outbreak on Thursday following a confirmed case of a 3-year-old girl from Lanao del Sur.
Duque said the DOH has started its immunization program last month and plans to expand it to other parts of the country to meet the vaccination rate target.
“We have begun the immunization against polio last Aug. 9. We began this campaign in Manila and we will be expanding this just to ensure that our vaccine coverage will improve to about 95 percent,” he added.
The DOH declared an outbreak after finding one positive case of the disease in Lanao del Sur and after environmental samples from Manila and Davao tested positive for poliovirus, as these are “considered an epidemic in a polio-free country.”
The DOH said it found type 1 poliovirus in Manila and type 2 in Davao. There is another type of poliovirus, type 3. Their main difference is the makeup of the outer, protective coating called the capsid./PN
