Enhance Polio Vaccine May Finally Eradicate Poliovirus

(Vax Before Travel)

The recent detection of vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) in London, England, and in New York has highlighted how poliomyelitis has not been overcome and remainsa globall problem, not confined to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Africa.

To address the risk of circulating VDPVs, a global collaborative effort over the past decade has enabled the development of a novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) that is as immunogenic as the current Sabin IPV strain vaccine while being less likely to revert to neurovirulence than oral polio vaccines, wrote Ananda S Bandyopadhyay, MBBS, and Simona Zipursky, MSc, in The Lancet Infectious Diseases on September 23, 2022.

The successful development of nOPV2—the first vaccine against type 2 poliovirus and the first vaccine ever authorized by the WHO Prequalification team, has led to the deployment of approximately 450 million doses of nOPV2 for outbreak control.

A total of 38 countries have already met the verification requirements to use nOPV2.

Monitoring the use of nOPV2 has confirmed it is more genetically stable and less likely to result in VDPV than the Sabin strain, suggesting that the target of the global eradication of poliomyelitis might be a little more attainable than previously believed.

As of October 5, 2022, the nOPV2 is not authorized by the U.S. FDA.

The Imovax Polio® Ipol® IPV vaccine and combination vaccines have been used in the USA since 2000.

The U.S. CDC confirmed that the U.S. was added to the list of countries for circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus on September 13, 2022.

And on September 26, 2022, the CDC issued an Alert – Level 2, Practice Enhanced Precautions travel advisory stating that anyone unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or with an unknown polio vaccination status should complete the routine polio vaccine series before any international travel.

Additional polio outbreak news is posted at Vax-Before-Travel.com/Polio.

Note: This information was manually translated and curated for international travelers.