Traces of the Polio Virus found in Several New York State Counties

While New York Governor Kathy Hochul has declared a disaster to increase resources allocated to her state’s effort to contain polio, this is likely part of a much larger problem. While 92.5% of children in the US have received three or more doses of the polio vaccine by the age of two, overall rates are declining nationally. For example, in Rockland County, NY, just 60% of residents were vaccinated for polio by August 1 of this year. CDC’s data shows that the national childhood vaccination rate for US kindergarteners declined 1% between 2019 and 2021, from 95% to 94%. While 1% may seem small, this means that about 211,000 kindergarteners in the US did not have all required vaccines in 2021, up from about 201,000 in 2019. This was even with enrollment in 2021 down 10% total. It is no small matter.

The pandemic has contributed to declining vaccination rates, particularly earlier on as people shied away from visiting their doctors for routine and preventative care. WHO announced earlier this year that about 25 million infants missed lifesaving vaccines in 2021 primarily because of disruptions caused by COVID-19. However, experts also worry that vaccine hesitancy is driving this and that it may lead to a future resurgence of previously controlled diseases like polio, pertussis, and measles. In the case of polio, large numbers of paralytic cases are unlikely, even if large numbers of unvaccinated people catch the disease. However, this is a very much vaccine preventable disease, making this problem particularly frustrating.

While this issue in the US is a concerning set-back, global eradication and containment efforts continue. Today, two of three strains of wild poliovirus have been eradicated globally. As a result, WHO is working with members states to help reduce the number of countries holding samples of polioviruses to a minimum and helping destroy unnecessary stocks. The WHO’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative recently released an update on Canada’s efforts to improve safeguards for work with poliovirus, explaining “As one of 25 countries retaining the eradicated type 2 poliovirus strain, Canada is putting in place the necessary safeguards to minimize this risk. In fact, the country is the first to have one of its facilities move to the second stage of WHO’s Containment Certification Scheme, through receiving an ‘Interim Certificate of Containment’, or ICC.”

“There are three stages of containment certification and ICC is the second,” said Liliane Boualam, WHO containment technical officer and co-chair of the GPEI’s Containment Management Group. “Effectively, this means the facility in question has been audited against WHO containment guidance by its National Authority for Containment, and has met a certain threshold of containment requirements. The validity of the ICC is limited to three years and the facility has two options: to either address any non-conformities identified through the audit, so as to be compliant with WHO containment guidance (GAP), or to decommission the facility and destroy or transfer virus materials to another (facility) undergoing certification within those three years,” she added. “WHO and GPEI commend Canada and its facility for being the first to achieve ICC status, and we look forward to their next steps, and progress by other countries retaining (polio)virus,” she said.”

“We are very pleased to have this Canadian facility advance to the next step in the containment certification process,” said Andréanne Bonhomme, Director, Biosafety and Biocontainment Operations at the Public Health Agency of Canada, and National Authority for Containment chair. “Canada appreciates the responsibility that comes with the ongoing handling and storage of poliovirus, and is committed to ensuring safe and secure containment of these viruses as essential functions continue,” she added.”

The piece continued by explaining hurdles in sticking to the international schedule: “Containment of type 2 poliovirus came into effect in 2016, following the declaration of its eradication in 2015. In 2018, WHO Member States recognizing the importance of the work, committed to acceleration of containment action globally. Significant advances have been made however many countries are behind on implementation timelines*. In part, the pandemic complicated matters, diverting resources away from containment and slowing implementation.”

“COVID-19 certainly hindered poliovirus containment efforts,” said Professor David Salisbury, chair of the Global Commission for the Certification of Eradication of Poliomyelitis and final signatory for containment certification certificates. “Encouragingly, we have seen improvements since individual country situations have stabilized, but progress is considerably behind schedule and we need to reprioritize this important work,” he added. “The goal is to have all facilities retaining polioviruses to have achieved full containment certification by 2026 and this means a great amount of work, and indeed much catching-up, needs to take place now,” he added.

This article is published courtesy of the Pandora Report.