From the Editorial Staff
The newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, August 1, 2024, p. 16
The Ministry of Health (Ssa) assured that the supply of the hexavalent vaccine is guaranteed, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, Haemophilus iinfluenzae b and polio in all public medical units in the country.
The director general of the National Center for Child and Adolescent Health (Censia), José Luis Díaz Ortega, said that although Mexico has been polio-free for more than 30 years, given the incidence of cases in other nations, there is a risk that the disease will be reintroduced to the country, which is why it is necessary to apply the vaccine to girls and boys who have not completed their vaccination schedule.
In a statement, the ministry confirmed that both the Ssa and other institutions in the sector have guaranteed the supply of the hexavalent vaccine, and recalled that polio is a highly infectious disease that primarily affects children under five years of age.
It is caused by a virus called poliovirus, which is transmitted from one person to another, mainly by the fecal-oral route, through the consumption of water or food contaminated with feces from infected people.
Up to 72 percent of infections do not present symptoms; 24 percent show a mild case of pharyngeal irritation, such as sore throat, fever and, in some cases, diarrhea; these symptoms are self-limiting and prevent the virus from advancing further in the body, so they disappear in the following days and leave no after-effects.
However, one in every thousand people who become infected with poliovirus develops flaccid paralysis of the limbs, which progresses to paralytic poliomyelitis, which is incurable and causes permanent disability in one of the limbs, mainly the lower ones.
She added that for this reason it is important that mothers, fathers, guardians or caregivers review the National Health Card to identify whether children under five years of age are missing any dose of the hexavalent vaccine, which is administered at two, four, six and 18 months.
