Introduction of Hib vaccine is known to positively impact on reduction of both morbidity and mortality in children less than 5 years of age. Incorporation of this vaccine into a National EPI, however, does come at a significant cost, which is especially important in non-GAVI funded countries. Compounded reduction in response in certain patient populations and possible indication of booster dose...

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Poliomyelitis—Madagascar 2002. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2002;51:622. 2. Guillot S, Caro V, Cuervo N, Korotkova E, Combiescu M, Persu A, et al.] Natural genetic exchanges between vaccine and wild poliovirus strains in humans. J Virol 2000;74:8434–43. 3. Pringle CR. Virus taxonomy at the XIth International Congress of Virology, Sydney, Australia, 19...

With the interruption of wild poliovirus transmission globally, the need for new policies to deal with the post-certification era will rapidly arise. New policies will be required in four areas: detection and notification of circulating polioviruses; biocontainment of wild, vaccine-derived and attenuated strains of poliovirus; vaccine stockpiles and response mechanisms; and routine immunization...

In 1993 a large outbreak of paralytic poliomyelitis occurred in Sudan as a result of an accumulation of large numbers of susceptible children that was accelerated by faltering immunization services. The extent of the outbreak led to the rapid rehabilitation of Sudan's Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI); the government began financing vaccine purchase, operational aspects of EPI were decen...

3 E Programme on Immunization. EPI continued to see significant progress in the Western Pacific Region over the past year. There were important gains in maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination, with Viet Nam achieving elimination status in 2005. In addition, the Region continues to be free of poliomyelitis. The decision taken at the fifty-sixth session of the Regional Committee for the Wester...

Poliovirus (PV), the pathogenic agent of paralytic poliomyelitis, is the prototype of the picornavirus family. Although paralytic poliomyelitis has been nearly totally eradicated in most industrialized countries, PV continues to be an important public health problem in many developing countries. Moreover, in industrialized countries, two current concerns are the occurrence, albeit at a very low...

The 20-year, U.S. $4 billion-dollar international effort to eradicate wild polioviruses now includes monovalent oral poliovirus type 1 vaccine (mOPV1), which was first given to 40 million children in India in April 2005. As this vaccine is being introduced to eliminate some of the last poliovirus reservoirs, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is planning for the eventual synchronized world...

Outbreaks caused by vaccine-derived polioviruses are challenging the final eradication of paralytic poliomyelitis. Therefore, the surveillance of the acute flaccid paralysis cases based on poliovirus isolation and characterization remains an essential activity. Due to the use of trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), mixtures containing more than one serotype of Sabin-related polioviruses are...

An outbreak of paralytic poliomyelitis occurred in the Dominican Republic (13 confirmed cases) and Haiti (8 confirmed cases, including 2 fatal cases) during 2000-2001. All but one of the patients were either unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated children, and cases occurred in communities with very low (7 to 40%) rates of coverage with oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV). The outbreak was associate...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To assess the amount of poliomyelitis and its epidemiological features including risk factors. DESIGN This was a retrospective study of cases of paralytic poliomyelitis among children 0-6 years of age. SETTING Pondicherry, India, 1983-89. SUBJECTS A total of 47,960 children aged less than 6 years. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS In 1989, 469 field workers undertook a door...