Dr. Jesus Feris Iglesias, director of the Department of Infectology of the Hospital Infantil Robert Reid Cabral, the nation’s principal children’s hospital, says they have not admitted the first case of polio. In the DR, three confirmed cases of polio were detected in the mountain town of Constanza. There have been no new cases reported. These have been attributed to negligence on behalf of the authorities and of parents in continuing with vaccination programs. The authorities had set up vaccination stations, leaving the vaccination responsibility up to parents. In the past, health brigades had reached out to the community taking the vaccine door-to-door to make sure everyone got vaccinated. Studies carried out by the US Government’s Center for Disease Control show that a weakened strain of the polio virus used as a vaccine could have mutated and caused this rare outbreak of the disease that had been eliminated in the DR in 1994. The mutated virus does not affect persons who have been duly vaccinated. Dr. Jesus Feris Iglesias, who is public health advisor to President Mejía, recalled the most effective immunization campaigns carried out by the government when Dr. Amiro Perez Mera was Minister of Public Health in 1982-86. At that time, the massive vaccination campaigns made the population aware of the importance of the vaccinations. He said that today immunization campaigns have been politicized. He urged separating health policies from politics. The Washington Post carried a report on the cases raising everyone’s awareness of what can be happened if the eradication of polio is taken for granted. http://www.brainerddispatch.com/stories/120200/hea_1202000132.shtml
