District 5630, What a Year!

Many of you have asked questions about the recent Vaccine Derived Polio cases.  Rotary is quite concerned about the increased numbers of Vaccine Derived cases as well as the Wild Polio cases.   Some of the increase in case numbers is due to better surveillance with more cases being identified.  When vaccine-derived cases are confirmed, there is an immediate response with vaccinations given in the immediate area.  See the attached Q&A’s from the CDC.  The CDC has created an outbreak response team and plans to deploy more than 60 CDC staff over the next 6 months to concentrate on Vaccine Derived outbreaks.  I hope this will help as you inform your District’s Rotarians about the Vaccine-Induced Polio cases.

Vaccine-Induced Polio Cases – From 2000 to date, 1085 cases of paralytic cVDPV have been reported, 932 (86%) of which were type 2. During the same period, >10 million cases of paralytic polio were averted. Vaccine-associated paralytic polio can occur in children who receive the vaccine, usually after the first dose, or in their susceptible close contacts, for a total of 2–4 cases per birth cohort of 1,000,000 children before the switch from trivalent OPV to bivalent OPV. Since the switch, an estimated 160–240 cases per year of type 2 vaccine-associated paralytic polio have been averted. Cessation of all OPV use after certification of polio eradication will eliminate the risk for VDPV emergence and spread.