The peril of the polio outbreak

Christine Dianne M. Corpuz

During the 1950s’, the polio outbreak caused dramatic effects on people who are living in United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and several European countries. The endemic was caused by the Poliomyelitis disease by a virus that is spread through person-to-person or faecal– oral contact. This virus mainly affects the nervous system, thus causing total paralysis to people affected in a matter of hours. Anyone can acquire the disease, however these mainly affected young children below the age of five.

As time passes by, scientists start the development of the poliomyelitis vaccine, and indeed caused a major breakthrough in the medical world, and prevented the disease as soon as children were born. The cases were slowly dropping down and parents who vaccinate their children on schedule, polio has been eliminated for more than 30 years, at least in the United States. At last, the World Health Organization had targeted 2005 for the global eradication of the disease, but sadly, this has not been achieved.

After 19 years of the Philippines being polio-free, on the 19th of September in 2019, an outbreak of polio was declared in our country. Children in the Philippines are at risk of lifelong paralysis because of this outbreak. During that time, two cases, one recorded case is a 3-yearold girl from Lanao del Sur. The virus isolated is genetically linked to VDPV2 previously isolated from environmental samples in Manila and Davao. The second case was confirmed on 19 September and is a 5-year-old boy from Laguna Province.

On a good note, WHO currently assesses the risk of international spread from the Philippines to be low. The country is also assessing the containment of the virus to no longer spread the virus and cause another epidemic in the country.

In summary, we, humans, should be aware of the danger of the polio disease and be responsible to no longer spread the virus, especially in a time wherein a major pandemic with tens of thousands of cases are reported in the country.

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The author is Teacher III at Porac National High School