HEALTH Minister Terrence Deyalsingh urged parents to get their children vaccinated against polio. He gave this advice when he addressed the launch of the true voluntary blood donation campaign at the San Fernando Teaching Hospital on Friday.
On Friday, a young adult in Rockland County, New York,was diagnosed with polio. This was the first case identified in the United States in nearly a decade.
In June, the UK Health Security Agency warned that it had detected poliovirus in its surveillance of London sewage samples. The agency said that there had been some spread between closely linked individuals in North and East London, although no cases had been identified there.
As he noted both incidents, Deyalsingh said they came on the heels of the covid19 pandemic (which began in 2019) and the monkeypox virus which emerged this year.
"The reason for me raising this, this morning, is that I am advising parents and children to not give in to and not pay undue attention to the anti-vaccine sentiment against the covid19 vaccine for children between the ages of five and 11."
He said this sentiment was "being perpetrated by five individuals who should know better." Deyalsingh did not identify these people by name.
He warned, "That is the collateral damage that the anti-vaxxers are having around the world. It is not only in Trinidad and Tobago."
Regarding the ministry's childhood vaccination programme for diseases like polio, Deyalsingh said, "We are one to two per centage points off from where we should be."
He added, "The minimum requirement for herd immunity (against polio and other childhood diseases) is 95 per cent."
Deyalsingh recalled this target for vaccination against polio and other childhood diseases was easily attained before the pandemic because children needed to show proof of being vaccinated against these diseases before they could attend school.
"Because many schools were closed for two years (due to covid19), many parents did not have to go through that rigour." He observed this resulted in vaccination rates for diseases like polio and yellow fever dropping over that period.
Deyalsingh said, "We went on a drive and we made up that."
But the emergence of live polio virus in London and a polio case in New York, he continued, underscores the need for all parents "who have not started the vaccination regime for polio and other childhood diseases, please get on board and start the programme.
Deyalsingh was not apologetic for the many times during the pandemic when he became emotional.
But with a straight face, he told his audience, "It would be a sad day if in a country of 1.4 million people, which is very small, we get a case of measles, mumps, rubella, yellow fever, whooping cough or polio."
Deyalsingh said, "We don't want to see that here."
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus. The virus spreads from person to person and can infect a person's spinal cord, causing paralysis.
Its symptoms may include sore throat, fever, ti
