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25-year-old Mon Kirby Tabrosa is among many polio victims left with no choice but to live life in a wheelchair. He currently goes about his day selling cigarettes and candies along the pathway to Sitio Nawanao in Barangay Subangdaku, Mandaue City.
“I wanted to take a computer course,” said Tabrosa in Cebuano.
“I was small when I went to school but I never got the chance to graduate,” he added.
His grandmother Elena Cañete has since taken the responsibility of taking care of him. While her grandson had complete vaccinations growing up, Tabrosa had gotten the poliovirus when he was still 3 years old – or before he was fully vaccinated.
Cañete recalls her grandson had been diagnosed around the year 1999 and it had affected his education in more ways than one. In the past, when her grandson was studying in Grade 1 at the special education department of the Mandaue City Central School, Tabrosa would often get bullied and had way too much trouble traveling from home to classroom due to his condition.
This eventually led to his family and himself deciding that it was best to not continue his education and just stay at home to be taken care of by his grandparents.
“Wala tay mahimo, gawas og kwartahan ta pero mao najud na… Akong advice sa mga tawo mas maayo nga immunize ang ato mga anak, i-complete jud,” Cañete said.
(We can’t do anything about it, unless we were rich but it is what it is…My advice for people is that it would be better if we immunize our children, make it complete.)
Tabrosa said that it wasn’t easy living with polio as it could only be prevented, not cured. He hopes and encourages that families will consider getting their children immunized, especially now in the pandemic.
In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) saw a rapid decline of parents having their children vaccinated. In 2018, the Department of Health (DOH) recorded that 3 out of ten children aged below 5 in the country have not even completed their vaccinations, which was one of the factors that led to an increase of people afflicted with preventable diseases such as measles, rubella, and polio. (READ: EXPLAINER: What is polio?)
In September 2019, DOH declared a polio epidemic after it recorded the country’s first confirmed polio case in Lanao del Sur. The case had come after 19 years of the country being polio-free.
To combat the poliovirus outbreak, the DOH had been conducting its polio immunization campaign named Sabayang Patak Kontra Polio since 2019 but this was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic around the beginning of 2020.
The polio immunization campaign targeted the areas in Mindanao, Central Luzon, and Southern Tagalog regions and officially started its first round of immunizations in late July to August 2020 and continued its second round in September of the same year.
It initially had trouble hitting its target immunization rate of 95% for all children between age 0-59 months but in the October 14-27 round of Sabayang Patay Kontra Polio, DOH reported an average of 95.58% coverage of children 0-59 months old who were vaccinated against polio in the National Capital Region (NCR) and in identified areas of Mindanao (Lanao del Sur, Marawi City, Davao del Sur, and Davao City).
This time, in late 2020 to 2021, the DOH alongside WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Relief International are implementing another supplemental immunization program in several barangays and sitios in the Visayas, Calabarzon, National Capital Region, and Central Visayas.
DOH launched phase one of the nationwide Measles Rubella – Oral Polio Vaccine Supplemental Immunization (MR-OPV SIA) Activity last October 26 to November 25, 2020, and targeted the areas of Mindanao, Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, and Southern Tagalog regions.
This coming February 1 to 28, Children below the age of 5 will be able to get vaccines for measles, rubella, and polio.
According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, mass immunization campaigns, known as National Immunization Days (NIDs) or supplementary immunization activities (SIAs), are one of the 4 pillars of eradication. This supplementary immunization is intended to complement – not replace – routine immunization.
“It is given by DOH as mandated by WHO when there is a threat of outbreak for a certain disease in an area. The doses of the vaccine given are the right amount appropriate for the target age group,” said Lester P. Ouano, Communications for Development Consultant for Relief International.
In a press release, Relief International stated that health care providers and vaccinators will be following the specified minimum health protocols such as physical distancing, wearing masks, and sanitizing with alcohol in the conduct of the activity.
Parents are encouraged to wear their masks when going to the vaccination post. Only one parent or guardian is allowed to accompany the children during the supplementary immunization activity.
“We cannot afford to exhaust our tired health frontliners to face possible outbreaks while still in a pandemic. The supplemental immunization activity is a necessary move to prevent such scenarios from happening,” Ouano concluded.
Like many survivors, Tabrosa hopes that parents would take the issue seriously and make it so that no other child would have to face COVID-19 with another unseen enemy – polio. – Rappler.com
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