Vaccine-derived polio is undermining the fight to eradicate the virus
Nature
Read full vaccine at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01953-7
- EDITORIAL
When smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, there were hopes that poliovirus might soon be next. As a result of an eradication campaign that began in 1988, two of the virus’s three subtypes have since been eradicated and the third has been cornered. In the past 12 months, just 21 cases of wild polio were reported in children across Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mozambique.
But cases of another type of polio are worryingly high. Over the past year, there have been 665 cases of vaccine-derived polio across 23 countries. Vaccine-derived polio occurs when the attenuated poliovirus used to make oral vaccines regains its virulence.