The world needs to prepare now to prevent polio resurgence post eradication

Amie Batson, Amanda Glassman, Awi Federgruen, Judith Diment, Nirmal Kumar Ganguly, Simba Makoni6, Stanley Plotkin

Summary box

• The authors of this paper earlier published a commentary on polio vaccine investment, in BMJ Global Health: : Batson A, et al. Polio eradication vaccine investment: how do we ensure polio vaccines are available to keep the world polio-free after transmission of wild poliovirus (wPV) has been interrupted? BMJ Global Health 2021;6:e006447. In that commentary the authors argued about the need to encourage investments to ensure the world has adequate supply of appropriate polio vaccines post eradication.

• The authors have since deliberated on a possible mechanism to motivate polio vaccine decision makers as well as suppliers to make these investments to secure vaccine supply for the future.

• After a positive year in 2021—no cases of wild polio virus in the entire world for 7 months—the manner in which the polio landscape has evolved in 2022 mirrors the fragility of the battle against this disease.

• In July, a case of paralytic polio was reported from New York, USA. The virus detected in the USA is genetically linked to the strain detected in environmental samples collected in early June in New York, Greater Jerusalem, Israel and London, UK.

• Therefore, we need to prepare now to make sure that all children are protected against polio.

• The mechanism proposed by the authors is a risk-sharing advance guarantee that will incentivise investment in inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) production and mitigate the risk of mid-term to long-term shortages of IPV stand-alone and IPV-containing hexavalent vaccines.

• The financial guarantee mechanism would provide national and global health policy makers with the confidence to adopt IPV and IPV-containing hexavalent vaccines and prevent recurrence of polio, secure in the knowledge that manufacturers would scale up production for surge in demand in the future.

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The world needs to prepare now to prevent polio resurgence post eradication
Source: Philippines Legacy PH