WHO, UNICEF help boost West Africa's capacity to respond to polio outbreaks - Nigeria - ReliefWeb

Posted: 26 Nov 2019 11:39 PM PST

Lomé, 26 November 2019 – The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) today kicked off a four-day regional emergency preparedness workshop in Lomé, Togo for senior public health officials to strengthen the capabilities within West African countries to respond to polio outbreaks.

The WHO African Region has not experienced any outbreak of wild poliovirus since 2016, with the last case detected in Nigeria's Borno State. This achievement makes the region eligible to be certified free of wild poliovirus in 2020. The region, however, still experiences outbreaks of rare circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses in 13 countries, almost half of them in West Africa.

Although vaccine-derived polioviruses are rare, they are sometimes found in severely underimmunized populations living in areas with inadequate sanitation. When children are immunized with the oral polio vaccine, the live virus replicates in their intestines for a short time, which allows them to build up the needed antibodies before being excreted. If immunization coverage remains low in a community and sanitation remains inadequate, the excreted virus can be transmitted to susceptible populations, leading to genetic changes and emergence of vaccine-derived polioviruses.

WHO, UNICEF and other partners are supporting the efforts of health ministries in all the 13 affected countries (Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Togo and Zambia) to respond to the circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreaks they are experiencing.

"The workshop aims to create a pool of senior public health officials who set up and lead national rapid response teams that target combating a circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreak," said Dr Modjirom Ndoutabe, WHO Regional Rapid Response Team Coordinator for Africa.

Senior health ministry officials as well as WHO and UNICEF immunization and polio experts from 12 West African countries are participating in the workshop. The attending countries are: Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, the Gambia and Togo.

"The workshop will train the participants on standard operating procedures for polio outbreak response according to international health regulations, including strategies that can strengthen a country's disease surveillance system. At the end of the week, each country will draft a preparedness plan to respond to circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreaks," Dr Ndoutabe added.

"Outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus are a challenge for the region, but we are capable of overcoming it through outbreak-response preparedness and vigilant surveillance," Dr Ndoutabe concluded.

Thanks to the dedication of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, polio cases have reduced by 99.9% since 1988, bringing the world closer than ever to ending polio. The initiative is a public-private global partnership comprising national governments; WHO; Rotary International; the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; UNICEF; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and a broad range of long-term supporters.

Polio vaccines causing more infections than wild virus: What parents need to know about oral vaccine - Times Now

Posted: 27 Nov 2019 12:33 AM PST

Polio vaccines causing more infections than wild virus: What parents need to know about oral vaccine | &nbspPhoto Credit:&nbspGetty Images

Key Highlights

Four African countries have reported nine new cases of polio caused by oral vaccine
Polio or poliomyelitis is a highly infectious viral illness caused by the poliovirus
The good news is that safe and effective vaccination can protect against such vaccine-derived strains

New Delhi: The emergence of new cases of polio linked to vaccines is a real global health concern. Statistics released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) last week (November 20) showed that as many as four African countries have reported nine new cases of polio caused by oral vaccine. With this, the total number of children affected by vaccine-derived polio infections in the world has risen to 157 for the year. This means, more children are being paralysed via vaccines than wildtype virus, which has affected some 107 kids this year.

In the report, WHO and partners said that apart from Nigeria, Congo, Central African Republic and Angola, seven countries elsewhere in Africa have reported similar outbreaks and cases have been reported in Asia. Vaccine-linked polio cases have been identified in Pakistan, one of the only three countries where polio remains endemic - along with Afghanistan and Nigeria.

What is Polio?

Polio or poliomyelitis is a highly infectious viral illness caused by the poliovirus. The disease is very contagious and spreads from person to person through contact with the faeces of an infected person. It is also transmitted through droplets from a sneeze or cough of an infected person. The disease mainly affects young children under five years of age, causing paralysis by invading the infected person's brain and spinal cord. Polio can't be cured but it can be prevented by immunisation. Hence, the polio vaccination remains one of the most important recommended childhood immunisations.

What you should know about oral poliovirus vaccine

Polio vaccine can protect the child by preparing his/her body to fight the poliovirus. Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) and oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) are the two types of vaccines that can prevent polio. While IPV is the only polio vaccine that's been used in the US since 2000, OPV is still used in many parts of the world, including in India.

Oral poliovirus vaccine is extremely safe and effective at protecting against polio, however, the live attenuated vaccine-virus in OPV can mutate over time and become infectious like wild poliovirus in rare cases, resulting in new outbreaks. As per the CDC, children who receive OPV may shed the virus, which can affect others - particularly those who are not vaccinated.

Meanwhile, all the current vaccine-derived polio cases have been caused by type 2 virus contained in the vaccine. It may be noted that type 2 wild virus was declared eliminated in 2015, since then, the world has switched from trivalent (containing all three types of poliovirus) to bivalent (only contains poliovirus type 1 and 3) OPV. This means the oral polio vaccine cannot protect against wild poliovirus type 2.

The good news is that safe and effective vaccination can protect against such vaccine-derived strains. For instance, IPV can protect people against all three types of poliovirus. Since the inactivated poliovirus vaccine does not contain live virus, it does not carry the risk of vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP). So, shifting to IPV from OPV could be an effective strategy in eliminating the risk of vaccine-derived poliovirus that can occur with the oral polio vaccine.

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