Polio Eradication Officer Interview Question:

Why are some industrialized countries using a different vaccine for polio than developing countries?

Submitted by: Administrator

Every country in the world except two (Sweden and Iceland) used oral polio vaccine (OPV) to eliminate polio and continued using OPV, usually until the late 1990s, when some switched to inactivated polio vaccine due to progress towards polio eradication (when the risk of wild poliovirus was diminished). Most countries use OPV as it has a unique ability to induce intestinal, local immunity, meaning that it can actually interrupt wild poliovirus transmission in an environment. This is not possible with IPV, an inactivated polio vaccine, which induces only very low levels of immunity to poliovirus inside the gut, and as a result provides individual protection against polio, but unlike OPV, cannot prevent the spread of wild poliovirus.
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