Polio vaccines and the eradication of poliomyelitis

摘要

In The Lancet, Kathleen O'Reilly and colleagues1 describe their findings from a case-control analysis of vaccination history data from children in Pakistan and Afghanistan, in which they estimated the clinical effectiveness of oral monovalent, bivalent, and trivalent poliovirus vaccines (OPVs) specifically related to type 1 poliomyelitis-a topic that might seem esoteric to those outside the poliomyelitis community. However, these results provide an example of the need to tailor immunisation programmes to epidemiological circumstances, particularly where the goal is eradication.