Rotary Fights Polio
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
By John Davis
Many are not aware that a key initiative of Rotary International is to eradicate Polio. As recently as last year the # of known cases in the world had dropped to 2, both in the middle east. A few months ago a case popped up in New York. This is clear indication that the fight is not yet over.

Read on to learn more about the efforts by Rotary International to fight Polio.

A modified vaccine offers hope that eradication is closer than ever

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In mid-2017, two groups of 15 strangers lived together for 28 days each in a ring of shipping containers assembled in the parking lot of Antwerp University Hospital in Belgium. They had access to books and movies, a small courtyard for barbecues, a common kitchen and dining room, and a fitness room — all of it behind secure interlocking doors and under the watch of personnel in protective gowns.

What sounds like a reality TV or sci-fi scenario was, in fact, a remarkable clinical trial of the latest weapon in the battle to eradicate polio — a reengineered vaccine called the novel oral polio vaccine type 2, or nOPV2. The study aimed to evaluate whether the altered formula, the first major update to polio vaccines in about six decades, could help end outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus, also known as variant poliovirus. Such cases arise in rare instances when the live but weakened virus contained in oral polio vaccines circulates in areas of low vaccine coverage and mutates back into a dangerous form that can infect people who have not been fully vaccinated.

The story continues here on the Rotary International Website.