WHO will switch to type 2 inactivated poliovirus vaccine

The World Health Organization’s campaign to eradicate poliomyelitis made impressive inroads in 2012: only 212 cases were reported, compared with 620 the previous year; moreover, India remained polio-free. The dark side of this story is that as wild polio is eliminated, vaccine-associated poliomyelitis moves in to take its place. The landmark decision by WHO to replace the infectious, type 2 Sabin poliovaccine with inactivated vaccine is an important step towards eliminating vaccine-associated polio. A known side effect of the Sabin poliovirus vaccines, which are taken orally and replicate in the intestine, is vaccine-associated poliomyelitis. During the years that the Sabin poliovirus vaccines (also called oral poliovirus vaccine, or OPV) were used in the US, cases of poliomyelitis caused by vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPV) occurred at a rate of about 1 per 1.4 million vaccine doses, or 7-8 per year. Once the disease was eradicated from the US in 1979, the only cases of polio were caused by VDPVs. For this reason the US switched to the Salk inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) in 2000. The main vaccine used by WHO in the global eradication effort has been a trivalent preparation comprising all three serotypes. When type 2 poliovirus was eradicated in 1999, many countries began immunizing only against types 1 and 3 poliovirus. As a consequence of this immunization strategy, population immunity to type 2 poliovirus declined. This switch, together with poor routine imm...
Source: virology blog - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Basic virology Information eradication IPV OPV polio poliomyelitis poliovirus Sabin Salk vaccine VDPV viral WHO world health organization Source Type: blogs