From 2001 to 2004, Switzerland switched from routine vaccination with oral polio vaccine (OPV) to inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), using both vaccines in the intervening period. Since IPV is less effective at inducing mucosal immunity than OPV, this change might allow imported poliovirus to circulate undetected more easily in an increasingly IPV-immunized population. Environmental monitoring is...

The first isolations of B virus were made by Sabin and Wright (1), and independently by Gay and Holden (2), from the central nervous system of an investigator who developed a spreading, fatal infection with ascending myelitis after a bite on the hand from an apparently normal rhesus monkey. Gay and Holden called the agent W virus and thought it to be a highly neurotropic strain of herpes simple...

The National Poliovirus Reference Laboratory at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL) is responsible for poliovirus testing for Australia and the Pacific Island countries. It is also a regional reference laboratory for the Western Pacific Region of the World Health Organization. Surveillance for acute flaccid paralysis, a clinical manifestation of poliomyelitis, is coor...