In 2014, inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) campaigns were implemented in Nigeria and Pakistan after clinical trials showed that IPV boosts intestinal immunity in children previously given oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV). We estimated the effect of these campaigns by using surveillance data collected during January 2014-April 2016. In Nigeria, campaigns with IPV and trivalent OPV (tOPV) substan...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Polioviruses are the causative agent of paralytic poliomyelitis. Attenuated polioviruses (Sabin oral poliovirus vaccine strains) do not replicate efficiently in neurons as compared to the wild type polioviruses and therefore do not cause disease. This study was aimed to investigate the differential host immune response to wild type 1 poliovirus (wild PV) and Sabin attenu...

Wild poliovirus (WPV) persists in diverse locales worldwide, spreading outward from endemic areas. In response to the international threat of WPV transmission and changes in the national vaccination policy, we established an environmental surveillance system to monitor the circulation of wild and vaccine-related poliovirus in Taiwan. From July 2012 to December 2013, we collected sewage specimen...

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has made substantial progress since its launch in 1988; only 37 wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases were detected in 2016, the lowest annual count ever. Wild poliovirus type 3 has not been detected since November 2012, and wild poliovirus type 2 was officially declared eradicated in September 2015. This success is attributable to the wide use of li...

During the post-eradication era of Global Polio Eradication, the role of supplementary virological surveillance of groups at risk for the disease increases. The goal of all types of surveillance is to detect possible wild poliovirus importation and evaluate vaccine-derived polioviruses circulation. The large outbreak of poliomyelitis caused by the wild poliovirus of type 1 in Tadjikistan and re...

Australia, along with 36 other countries in the Western Pacific Region, was declared free of poliomyelitis by the World Health Organization in October 2000. Yet, the persistence of wild poliovirus in the 4 remaining polio-endemic countries-Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan-poses a risk for its importation into all countries declared polio free. We describe the public health response and...

The eradication of poliomyelitis in Cuba, for which effective vaccines had to be acquired, is reviewed in this article. The strategy for eradication was based on mass immunization campaigns for the annual delivery of two doses of trivalent Sabin oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV). Except during the first campaign in 1962, the ages of the children for immunization were determined through national ser...

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988, is close to achieving its goal. In 2015, reported cases of wild poliovirus were limited to just two countries - Afghanistan and Pakistan. Africa has been polio-free for more than 18 months. Remaining barriers to global eradication include insecurity in areas such as Northwest Pakistan and Eastern and Southern Afghanistan, where polio ca...

In May 1988 the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution for the global eradication of poliomyelitis. Since then two target dates for eradication (2000 and 2003) have passed and the struggle to eradicate the poliovirus continues. Australia’s commitment to the worldwide campaign began in December 1994 with the designation of the National Poliovirus Reference Laboratory at the Victorian Infecti...

Seventy-seven wild poliovirus strains isolated from poliomyelitis cases in the Civil Hospital of Karachi in Pakistan in 1989-1993 were selected for partial sequence analysis covering the VP1/2A junction region of the viral genome to study the genetic relationships and epidemiological links between strains. Viral RNA was partially amplified by RT-PCR and sequenced by a solid phase method. Comput...