Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 17) — A day after confirming the first case of polio in Metro Manila, the Department of Health said Friday that it will conduct a new round of immunization in the area later this month.

In a chance interview with the media, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the upcoming immunization on January 27 to February 8 will be against the type 2 strain of vaccine-derived polio.

The DOH earlier bared that a three-year-old boy from Batasan Hills in Quezon City contracted vaccine-derived type 2 poliovirus. Duque said the boy was not inoculated against that strain.

He added that the government had to drop the type 2 polio vaccine in 2015 after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the strain was eradicated.

"Since wala na raw naman 'yung type 2, tinigil na ng WHO (since there wasn't any case of type 2 poliovirus at the time, WHO decided to drop the vaccine). That's what they're telling me. But I'm questioning that [because] I don't think they should have taken it out but they did," Duque said on the sidelines of the government's Duterte Legacy campaign at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).

The three-year-old boy was among the four new cases recorded by the DOH, bringing the total number cases in the Philippines to 16.

READ: Polio can be controlled and wiped out, DOH says

The World Health Organization says polio is a highly infectious viral disease that mainly affects children under the age of five. The disease can cause paralysis, and on rare occasions, can be fatal. It has no cure but can be prevented by multiple doses of vaccines.

The DOH confirmed the resurgence of polio in the Philippines in September 2019, nearly two decades after the country was declared polio-free.

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