New polio vaccine poised to get emergency WHO approval

A vaccine against a type of polio that is spreading in the Southern Hemisphere is expected to receive emergency approval before the end of the year. If it does, it will be the first time the World Health Organization has steered an unlicensed vaccine or drug through its emergency listing process.

Wild polio has been almost eradicated. Only two countries — Afghanistan and Pakistan — still report cases. But a version of the virus that arose naturally from the weakened polio virus used in vaccination is increasing,

What is called circulating vaccine-derived polio-virus (cVDPV), is increasing in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as in the Philippines, Malaysia, Yemen and 19 African countries — with Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Côte d’Ivoire the worst affected in Africa.

So far in 2020, there have been more than 460 cases of vaccine-derived polio worldwide. This is more than 4 times the number detected by this time in 2019, which is a major problem for the 32-year, US$17-billion global campaign to wipe out the disease. Researchers who model polio infections say that for every known case, there are about 2,000 infections in the population. ...