Vaccines & Viruses: Vaccine-derived polio breaks out in Ukraine and Mali

Polio problems. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced polio had paralyzed a 4-year-old and 10-month-old in Ukraine, marking Europe’s first polio outbreak in five years. And on Monday, WHO said a child in Mali, a nation in West Africa, had contracted polio and been paralyzed.

In both cases, the polio came not from a virus circulating in the wild but from oral polio vaccines, which use weakened, live versions of the virus that carry a rare but persistent possibility of mutating into a dangerous strain. Once a child with a mutated strain excretes it (polio is primarily spread by fecal matter), the virus may begin circulating among unimmunized people. In Ukraine, only about half of children have been fully vaccinated. Including the Mali case, there have been 13 instances of vaccine-derived polio paralysis around the world so far this year. There were 55 such cases in 2014.

The United States no longer uses live oral polio vaccines, but relies on inactivated strains that cannot mutate. However, the inactivated vaccines are five times more expensive than oral drops, must be administered in shot form by medical professionals, and offer weaker immunity protection. The oral vaccines are a more efficient approach for nations that cannot easily afford polio shots.

Only about one in 200 polio cases results in paralysis, so there may be dozens more children in Ukraine and Mali infected with the virus. Health officials are planning emergency vaccination campaigns to prevent further spread.

In India, some researchers have linked an apparent spike in paralysis cases to widespread polio vaccination. The country recorded nearly 18,000 cases of “acute flaccid paralysis” this year, up from 8,500 in 2003. The paralysis cases appear to be caused by nonpolio enteroviruses, not polio, which was eradicated from India in 2011. The researchers speculate polio vaccination has provoked an increase in another type of disease. Other scientists, however, disagree and think the paralysis spike is actually due to better surveillance.

Aged and cultured. Here’s the odd case of a man who has been incubating the polio virus in his gut for 30 years, thanks to an oral vaccine.

Persistent pains. One year after the Ebola epidemic, survivors are still suffering long-term health effects, including blurry vision and hearing problems. Nancy Writebol, the SIM missionary who became the second American diagnosed with Ebola last year, says she still feels joint pain in her knees.

Excused. The New York State Education Department granted a Russian Orthodox mother a religious exemption from giving her school-aged son the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine after she complained about the vaccine’s connection to aborted fetal tissue. New York City education officials had initially denied her request.

Not worth a spit. While scientists test a “promising” vaccine against the deadly MERS virus—linked to camels in Saudi Arabia—Indonesian health officials are giving this directive to Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca: Don’t drink the camel milk.

Hallo, are you well? A friendly nurse who can’t speak German is convincing communal Hutterites in South Dakota to vaccinate their children.