Novel Oral Polio Vaccine Type 2 Use for Polio Outbreak Response: A Global Effort for a Global Health Emergency

Abstract

A sharp rise in circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) outbreaks in the years following the cessation of routine use of poliovirus type 2-containing oral polio vaccine and the trend of seeding new emergences with suboptimal vaccination response during the same time-period led to the accelerated development of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2), a vaccine with enhanced genetic stability and lower likelihood of reversion to neuroparalytic variants compared to its Sabin counterpart. In November 2020, nOPV2 became the first vaccine to be granted an Emergency Use Listing (EUL) by the World Health Organization (WHO) Prequalification Team (PQT), allowing close to a billion doses to be used by countries within three years after its first rollout and leading to full licensure and WHO prequalification (PQ) in December 2023. The nOPV2 development process exemplifies how scientific advances and innovative tools can be applied to combat global health emergencies in an urgent and adaptive way, building on a collaborative effort among scientific, regulatory and implementation partners and policymakers across the globe.

Review of Poliovirus Transmission and Economic Modeling to Support Global Polio Eradication: 2020–2024

“…IC reported the results of several vaccine effectiveness studies, including a phase 4 clinical trial on the effect of maternal immunization with multivalent vaccines containing IPV in infants [ 54 ] and the effectiveness of nOPV2 and mOPV2 against cVDPV2s in Nigeria between 2017 and 2022 [ 55 ]. IC commented on the first Africa-based nOPV2 clinical trial [ 56 ] and contributed to perspectives related to the impacts of one billion doses and WHO prequalification of nOPV2 [ 57 ] and the use of nOPV2 for oSIAs [ 58 ].…”