By NewsDesk    @infectiousdiseasenews

A three-day polio vaccination campaign took place in the province of Lunda Norte, according to Angolan press.

Angola/VoodooIsland

The campaign vaccinated 205,688 children between the ages of zero and five, in the ten municipalities of the province.

Angola has reported two circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) outbreaks in the country this year–one in Lunda Norte province bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) and a more recent one in Kuvango district, Huila province.

The two strains are unrelated, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Polio, Pakistan, the progress and difficulties with WHO spokesperson, Oliver Rosenbauer

 

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative says Vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs) are rare strains of poliovirus that have genetically mutated from the strain contained in the oral polio vaccine.

The oral polio vaccine contains a live, attenuated (weakened) vaccine-virus. When a child is vaccinated, the weakened vaccine-virus replicates in the intestine and enters into the bloodstream, triggering a protective immune response in the child. Like wild poliovirus, the child excretes the vaccine-virus for a period of six to eight weeks. Importantly, as it is excreted, some of the vaccine-virus may no longer be the same as the original vaccine-virus as it has genetically altered during replication. This is called a vaccine-derived poliovirus.

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