Not sure what's wrong with your code. I tried to reproduce your issue, but i can't. Below code is working fine:
import pandas as pd
ids1 = [1, 2, 3, 4]
ids2 = ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D']
esc1 = [1, 0, 0, 0]
esc2 = [0, 1, 0, 2]
esc3 = [0, 0, 3, 0]
data = {'ID1': ids1,
'ID2': ids2,
'escto1': esc1,
'escto2': esc2,
'escto3': esc3}
df = pd.DataFrame(data)
print("Original data:")
print(df)
print("With additional column:")
df['helper'] = df.filter(like='escto').gt(0).any(1).astype(int)
print(df)
Result:
Original data:
ID1 ID2 escto1 escto2 escto3
0 1 A 1 0 0
1 2 B 0 1 0
2 3 C 0 0 3
3 4 D 0 2 0
With additional column:
ID1 ID2 escto1 escto2 escto3 helper
0 1 A 1 0 0 1
1 2 B 0 1 0 1
2 3 C 0 0 3 1
3 4 D 0 2 0 1