Polio outbreak at SEA Games 30 venue
The polio outbreak in the Philippines during the 30th SEA Games has raised concerns about the risk of athletes entering epidemic areas contracting the disease and bringing it back home.
The Department of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health, said that the National Focal Point for the implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR) of Vietnam has received information from the World Health Organization (WHO) announcing that the Philippines - where the 30th SEA Games are taking place - has recorded an outbreak of polio virus after 19 years of eradication in the country.
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| Children need to be vaccinated against polio to prevent the disease from re-emerging. Photo: Shutterstock. |
Accordingly, from September 2019 to now, the Philippines has recorded 8 cases of polio. To respond to the epidemic, since October 2019, the Philippines has carried out a large-scale polio vaccination campaign nationwide for all children under 5 years old, at the same time announcing the epidemic, regularly updating epidemic information and providing recommendations on disease prevention for people and tourists...
The head of the Department of Preventive Medicine also said that WHO assessed the risk of international spread of polio as low, but that new cases may be detected in the Philippines.
Regarding the risk of polio infection for Vietnamese athletes and fans competing and cheering at the ongoing SEA Games in the Philippines, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Kinh, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Infectious Diseases, said that polio is an acute viral infection transmitted through the digestive tract, but athletes and fans do not need to worry too much. Polio causes disease mainly in young children who have not received the vaccine or have not received enough doses, and rarely causes disease in adults because most adults are immune.
Because the virus mainly causes disease in young children, during the time when the Philippines is at risk of a polio outbreak, families should not let their children go to epidemic areas. "In cases of polio virus infection, the disease has typical symptoms of acute flaccid paralysis syndrome. When the virus enters the body, it will reach the lymph nodes, penetrate the central nervous system, and cause damage to the anterior horn cells of the spinal cord and motor neurons of the cerebral cortex," Professor Kinh noted.
