PHOTOGRAPHER

After 19 years of being a polio-free country, the Department of Health (DOH) in the Philippines confirmed the resurgence of the fatal disease on September 2019.

 

According to the World Health Organization, children five years and below are vulnerable of the infectious disease that can only be prevented with multiple doses of polio vaccines that have long been proven safe and effective but there's no existing cure for the disease.

 

Polio was supposed to be extinct by 2018, after an earlier deadline of 2000 set by the initiative was pushed back, but a year later the highly contagious disease remains undisputed. Now, the initiative hopes to rid the world of this disease by 2023.

After the Polio epidemic, measles and dengue outbreaks also hit the country this year that caused the death of thousands of people, including children, as the public trust in vaccines broke down after the Dengvaxia controversy.