DOH to Parents: Both OPV and IPV Should not be Missed by Infants

The Department of Health (DOH) is reminding parents that Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) and Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) are essential vaccines that should not be missed by infants to ensure their protection against polio.

The DOH says polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus which invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.

According to Health Secretary Janette L. Garin, IPV and OPV are both needed by an infant and should go hand-in-hand and not to be confused as substitute or replacement for one another.

“IPV is not a substitute for OPV that have long been given to infants,” Secretary Garin clarified.

She said that a child needs to complete the three doses of OPV which are administered in health centers for free based on schedules.

She also said that one dose of IPV has been added to ensure the child’s protection against polio.

The Health Chief made the clarification after receiving several queries on the DOH twitter and facebook accounts whether IPV is still necessary for those getting the OPV.

She recalled that the DOH included IPV in its Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) which was launched in health centers nationwide two years ago.

The first two OPV doses are given when an infant is 1½ and 2½ months old.

“IPV is given with the third dose of OPV, when your child is 3½ months old,” Dr. Garin said.

IPV is an injected vaccine that provides protection in the blood and strengthens the protection given by the OPV.

OPV is given orally to provide protection in the mouth, in the intestines, and in the blood, which are areas where the polioviruses often multiply.

Secretary Garin said that IPV is needed as a booster immunity because with OPV, the virus is just knocked out or rendered comatose.

She added that since there is a possibility that it (wild polio virus) can return with greater strength, giving of IPV is a step to prevent its risk of coming back or ensure its total eradication.

She explained that IPV will help in reducing the risk of possible outbreak of polio in the country because while the Philippines has been declared polio-free in 1993, there is still a risk for polio importation due to lots of contributing factors.

Among these factors are the country’s highly mobile population, the presence of numerous airports, seaports, and other ports of entry, the presence of areas with low immunization coverage, and inadequate reporting of cases.

The DOH Chief said that both IPV and OPV are providing protection to the children by sparing them against possible disability so that they can be healthy and productive as future economic members and contributors in the country.

In addition, herd immunity is being created when there are more children being immunized.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the IPV being provided by DOH is safe like any other vaccines that it has approved and evaluated.

WHO also said that just like any other vaccines provided to anyone, especially to children, possibility of temporary and mild reactions can be experienced or be felt by the child when he or she receives the vaccines.

WHO has attested that such mild reactions are just part of the body’s initial normal response.

Among the said normal reactions that are considered temporary are discomfort, redness and swelling on portions where the vaccine is injected (injection site), and even fever.

All these are manageable with hot compress and paracetamol which are being recommended by trained healthcare providers in the health centers where the vaccines are usually administered.

Aside from OPV and IPV, other vaccines are being provided by DOH under its EPI program to give protection to children as part of ensuring that they are protected from vaccine-preventable illnesses.

Among them are BCG (anti-tuberculosis), Hepatitis B, DPT (anti-diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus), OPV, HiB (anti-influenza type B), and MMR (anti-measles, mumps and rubella) vaccines.

The country began its EPI in 1979, five years after the WHO launched its EPI in 1974.

In addition, the DOH has also launched the school-based immunization program in public schools to further ensure that school children will not miss the vaccines that they need to be healthy and strong as part of the investment on the health of children.

Through that immunization program, vaccines for measles, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis are given among Grades 1 and 7 pupils.

Alongside with it is the deworming of school children during the National School Deworming Day held every January and July, both in partnership and cooperation with the Department of Education (DepEd) and Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

In communities identified to be in the poorest provinces or Geographically Isolated and Disadvantage Area (GIDA), grade 4 girls aged nine years were also given last year with anti-cervical cancer or human papilloma vaccines (HPV) for free.

On top of that, this coming March, the DOH will also be starting to vaccinate school children against dengue disease.

Target of the said vaccination are poor grade 4 school children in Regions III (Central Luzon), IV-A (Calabarzon) and the National Capital Region (NCR) wherein high incidence of dengue cases were recorded in the past years.

With these several vaccines being continuously provided for children by the DOH, it is evidently pushing forward its goal of improving the healthcare delivery system under the Universal Health Care (Kalusugang Pangkalahatan) vision of the Aquino government.

It is said that the health of a nation is a wealth itself because the children of today will be tomorrow’s workforce.

In line with this, the government is ensuring that the health of the children is protected and compliant with the reduction of infant and children mortality rate by making it also as a requirement among beneficiaries under the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program that poor children are receiving the same services through regular visits to health centers.

CCT, a human development program that invests on the health and education of children, is being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in cooperation with the DOH and DepEd. (PNA) SCS/LSJ