Poliovirus vaccine: commentary.
Year: 1999
Type: article
Abstract: In 1984, year before the initiative to eradicate poliomyelitis from the Americas was launched, the 1960 paper by Sabin et al. (1) was reprinted as Landmark Article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In 1999, as the world reaches towards the year 2000 goal of global poliomyelitis eradication, we once again draw attention to this important scientific publication, which is effectively a perennial. We take this opportunity to reflect on the scope of Dr Sabin's wide-ranging vaccine research career. Not only did Sabin develop oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV); he also organized field trials of the vaccine, conducted studies to assess different strategies for using OPV, such as this classic report of study in Toluca, Mexico; and he envisioned the ultimate use of his vaccine to achieve global eradication of all wild polioviruses. This far-sighted, in-depth vision of vaccination serves as an inspiration to today's vaccine research community. In their paper, Sabin et al. demonstrated the feasibility of using OPV to reduce rapidly poliovirus transmission in subtropical and tropical areas. Two strategies were recommended for OPV delivery that still form the basis for poliomyelitis eradication. First, Sabin et al. recommended feeding trivalent [oral poliovirus] vaccine on two brief occasions at an interval of six to eight weeks to all children under 4 to 5 Today this strategy corresponds to the mass immunization campaigns known as National Immunization Days (NIDs). In 1998, NIDs were conducted in nearly all poliomyelitis-endemic countries worldwide. Second, Sabin et al. foresaw that oncoming generations of children will have to be similarly vaccinated at the optimum time during the first 6 months of life .... Routine early immunization with OPV is strategy that has been advocated by WHO for more than 25 years. During his career, Sabin remained cognizant of the need for well-managed national immunization programmes to reduce and eliminate vaccine-preventable infectious diseases, and he contributed other papers that further refined the basic strategies for poliomyelitis eradication. He stressed the importance of surveillance, rapid virus isolation, the role of genomic sequencing of the virus, and the necessity of door-to-door administration of OPV in certain environments (2-4). In 1988, more than 100 countries were endemic for wild poliovirus. Today, the eradication of wild polioviruses from Brazil, Cambodia, China, E1 Salvador, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Mexico, Peru, Zimbabwe and many other countries has demonstrated the feasibility of poliomyelitis eradication, under even the most difficult circumstances (5). By the end of 1998, wild polioviruses were essentially confined to south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. With continued progress, it is anticipated that poliomyelitis will be eradicated by the end of the year 2000, or shortly thereafter. Failure to eradicate poliomyelitis, due mainly to insufficient resources, would have serious consequences for the global public health community in general, and for immunization programmes in particular. Unfortunately, since 1990, when the 80% global coverage target was achieved by the Universal Childhood Immunization Initiative, there has been decline in donor support for immunization services in the developing world. …
Source: Europe PMC (PubMed Central)
Authors: J M Olivé, B Aylward
Institution: World Health Organization
Language: English
Subfield: Infectious Diseases
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1543064634