* Polio has infected two young children in Philippines
* Other countries, including Ukraine, are vulnerable
* Polio prevalence graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/31FJLN6
By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent
LONDON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - The first cases of the
child-crippling polio virus in the Philippines for 19 years are
a warning for countries such as Ukraine, where low immunity
offers fertile ground for viral epidemics, disease experts say.
Ukraine already has a big outbreak of measles - one of the
world's most contagious diseases - with almost 57,000 cases and
18 deaths recorded in the first eight months of this year,
according to health ministry figures.
Confidence in vaccines and coverage with childhood
immunisations against a range of pathogens have in recent years
been dangerously low, World Health Organization (WHO) experts
and the UN Children's fund UNICEF say, leaving large pockets of
people vulnerable to viral infections.
"It's like a time bomb. It's ticking, and it could explode
at any time," said Lotta Sylwander, head of UNICEF Ukraine.
Sylwander's last post with UNICEF was in the Philippines,
where polio has been confirmed as having infected two young
children. Polio is incurable but can be prevented with vaccination and
has been successfully eradicated in vast areas of the world in
the past few decades. Until last month, it had also been
banished from the Philippines, with no cases seen since 2000.
Its "alarming come-back" in two confirmed cases in places
about 900 miles (1,450 km) apart "puts 11 million Filipino
children ... at high risk of disability and even death"," said
Chris Staines of the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies.
Like the measles virus, which has been spreading through
both the Philippines and Ukraine for at least a year, polio can
pose a risk unless at least 95% of the population is vaccinated.
Polio immunisation coverage in the Philippines is at 70%. In
Ukraine in 2017, only 51.9% of babies under a year old were
immunised against polio, UNICEF says. Last year that rose to
69.2%.
Oliver Rosenbauer, the WHO's spokesman for the Polio
Eradication Initiative, described polio as "a highly infectious
and epidemic-prone disease" and said a range of factors can
contribute to low rates of immunisation: Vaccine hesitancy,
community resistance, lack of infrastructure, lack of supply,
patchy health services, war and conflict.
"Polio virus is very good at finding unvaccinated children,
and for sure there are vaccine coverage gaps," he said.
Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project
which tracks immunisation coverage and attitudes to vaccines
around the world, noted the "worrying" pattern of polio's return
to the Philippines amid a measles outbreak, and said Ukraine's
measles epidemic is a "canary in the mine" warning.
"The challenge now (in Ukraine) is whether in the face of
all this measles, have they kept up their guard against polio,"
she told Reuters.
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Polio prevalence graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/31FJLN6
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