The Polio Research Committee: one year on…
In May 2008, the Polio Research Committee (PRC) was established by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), with experts in the fields of virology, epidemiology, sociology and public health from around the world. The PRC reports to the Advisory Committee on Poliomyelitis Eradication (ACPE), the global independent advisory body to the GPEI, and is providing strategic guidance to the extensive programme of research, coordinated by the Research and Product Development team of the GPEI at the World Health Organization (WHO).
Since its inception, the PRC has endorsed and provided funds to the following 17 research projects:
- five alternate IPV strain development projects (National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, Hertfordshire, UK; US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - CDC, Atlanta, USA; University of California at San Francisco, USA; and two projects with the State University of New York - SUNY, Stoneybrook, USA)
- one alternative inactivation method for IPV production (Netherlands Vaccine Institute, Bilthoven, the Netherlands)
- one communication research project (UNICEF)
- two IPV adjuvant development projects (Infectious Disease Research Institute, Seattle, USA; Global Vaccines, Research Triangle Park, USA)
- three antiviral drug development projects (CDC, Atlanta, USA; National Institute of Infectious Diseases Tokyo, Japan; University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium)
- two mathematical modelling projects (Imperial College London, London, UK; Kids Risk, Boston, USA)
- two surveillance and monitoring projects in Pakistan (National Institute of Health Pakistan, Islamabad; Aga Khan University, Karachi; Pakistan Medical Research Council, Islamabad; Khyber Medical University, Peshawar)
- one evaluation of zinc supplementation’s effect on OPV (Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan).
The PRC has highlighted a number of remaining unmet research needs, in particular relating to further investigating underlying causes for compromised vaccine efficacy in northern India, and operational research on risk factors to vaccine delivery in areas of low vaccination coverage.