MANILA, Philippines — If one of the children recently diagnosed with polio received vaccine, why was he still infected?
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III explained on Friday that the three-year-old boy who lives in Quezon City did not receive a vaccine against the Type 2 strain of the vaccine-derived poliovirus.
“In 2015, tinigil nila yung pagbibigay ng Type 2 so ang nabigay Types 1 and 3,” Duque told reporters in the sidelines of the Duterte Legacy campaign in Pasay City.
(In 2015, they stopped giving vaccines for Type 2 poliovirus so what was given was only for Types 1 and 3.)
“He was not covered for the Type 2 because the WHO (World Health Organization) recommended that the Type 2 was no longer part of the circulating wild polio virus so hininto nila ‘yun (they stopped it),” he continued.
Roque said he believes that giving of Type 2 polio vaccines should not have been stopped.
“Now since wala naman na daw yung Type 2, tinigil ng WHO. But I am questioning that now. Kasi I don’t think they should have taken it out. But they did,” Roque said.
(Now since they said there is no longer Type 2 poliovirus, the WHO stopped it. But I am questioning that now. Because I don’t think they should have taken it out. But they did.)
The three-year-old boy was one of the four new cases of polio in the country reported by the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday.
According to the Quezon City government, the initial investigation by the Quezon City Health Department showed that the child received five doses of vaccine against polio.
“The first three vaccines were administered while the child was still an infant and the other two during the DOH’s “Sabayang Pagpatak” campaign last year,” the city government said in a statement.
Duque, however, assured that there is enough supply of vaccines, saying that the health department will have another polio vaccination drive—the Sabayang Patak Kontra Polio (SPKP) campaign—in the National Capital Region (NCR) from January 27 to February 27.