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15 December 2009
Afghanistan first in world to use new vaccine
against polio
Critical step as global eradication
effort faces entrenched challenges
 15 December, Kabul – A new vaccine against polio will be used for the
first time today in polio immunization campaigns in Afghanistan. The bivalent
oral polio vaccine (bOPV), recommended by the Advisory
Committee on Poliomyelitis Eradication, the global technical advisory body of
the Global Polio Eradication Initiative as a critical tool to eradicate
polio, can provide the optimal concurrent protection needed by young children
against both surviving serotypes (types 1 and 3) of the paralysing virus. This
will vastly simplify the logistics of vaccination in the conflict-affected parts
of this country. This sub-national immunization campaign, from 15-17 December,
will deliver bOPV to 2.8 million children under five in the Southern,
South-Eastern and Eastern Regions of Afghanistan.
Of the three wild polioviruses (known as types 1, 2 and 3), type 2 has not been
seen anywhere in the world since 1999. This achievement led to the development
of monovalent vaccines, which provide protection against a single type with
greater efficacy than the traditional trivalent vaccine. To determine whether a
bivalent vaccine could effectively protect children living in areas where both
types circulate, a clinical field trial completed in June 2009 compared bOPV
with the existing vaccines. For both types 1 and 3 polio, bOPV was found to be
at least 30% more effective than the trivalent vaccine and almost as good as the
monovalent vaccines, yet in a package that could deliver both at once.
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