Polio research: helping secure a lasting polio-free world
Following an overview of research to support countries’ polio eradication efforts in Issue 2, this edition of the Polio pipeline examines the research activities to help set the stage for the post-eradication era.
The intensified polio eradication effort launched in February 2007 by the stakeholders of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) saw renewed innovation to address the remaining technical and operational barriers to polio eradication. Recently-developed tools and tailored eradication tactics – including monovalent oral polio vaccines (mOPVs) – have been evaluated and rolled-out in key polio-infected areas. Bold new initiatives to further optimize the efficacy of polio vaccination – including bivalent OPV - are being field tested.
The identification, development and evaluation of new tools and tailored tactics to more rapidly interrupt wild poliovirus transmission globally has been a key strategic objective of an extensive programme of research. This work is coordinated by the Research and Product Development team at the World Health Organization (WHO). Strategically guided by the independent Polio Research Committee (PRC), and in close cooperation with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this programme of research involves an expanding number of private and public institutions.
This coordinated programme of research is also scaling up its activities to meet its second objective: to broaden and deepen the knowledge-base necessary for policy decisions associated with the post-eradication era, and thereby ensuring that the long-term risks of polio are minimised and appropriately managed.
This second objective focuses broadly on three areas:
- fully characterizing the long-term polio risks, relating primarily to vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs) as a result of the continued re-introduction into the human population of the attenuated polioviruses contained in OPV
- managing the VDPV risks, including through the cessation of OPV use in routine immunization programmes as soon as possible after certification of wild poliovirus eradication
- internationally coordinating the strategies for the management of the long-term polio risks, the containment of wild and Sabin polioviruses, internationally-agreed processes for the use of OPV in response to new outbreaks of polio and clearing of immunodeficiency-associated excretion of poliovirus.