Manila starts polio fight after Indonesia outbreak
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The Philippines has started a polio vaccination drive in the south of the country, fearing a possible spread of the virus from Indonesia. Health Secretary Francisco Duque said in a statement the campaign was targeting about 605,000 children in five provinces of the country’s autonomous Muslim region and Zamboanga City, both in southern Mindanao Island.
Polio attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis in hours. Children are most at risk.
The vaccinations in the Philippines started on August 30 in parts of Maguindanao province after the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the outbreak of polio in Indonesia could spread in other countries in the region. The Department of Health said a second round is scheduled on September 26 in the southern provinces of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu, Tawi-tawi and Basilan.
The United Nation’s Children Fund said it is providing $170,000 for the campaign. “Due to their proximity to Indonesia, these areas are at high-risk for being the entry points of the polio virus,” UNICEF said in a statement.
Indonesia had been free from polio since 1995 but the crippling, water-borne disease returned in May to the world’s most populous Muslim nation. The number of confirmed cases has hit 225.
The last case of polio in the Philippines was in 1993.
The WHO has said global immunization efforts reduced the number of polio cases globally to 1,110 as of August 24, UNICEF said.
Six countries—Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Niger and Egypt—remain endemic for polio.
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