Polio vaccine jab set for October roll-out

The Ministry of Health will introduce an injectable polio vaccine from October to address the challenges of the oral dose.

The oral vaccine has side effects such as polio-like paralysis, though rare.

According to the head of Vaccine and Immunization Services, Dr Ephantus Maree, the country has not had any cases of paralysis following the vaccine, calling it “an almost one-in-a-million chance.”

Dr Maree said: “While it has not happened in the country, a strain of polio virus in the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) may change and revert to a form that may be able to cause paralysis in humans and develop the capacity for sustained circulation, this too is very rare.”

Vaccine-associated paralytic polio is brought by a strain of the polio virus in OPV (the vaccine has at least three types of the polio strains) as the vaccine is a composition of live but weakened (attenuated) polio viruses, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

The strain genetically changes in the intestine from the original attenuated form, as contained in the vaccine, and becomes harmful. This, however, happens in approximately 1 in 2.7 million doses of OPV.

He added that the injectable vaccine, also known as the Inactivated Polio Vaccine, to be injected in the arm or leg is recommended.

However, the IPV is five times more expensive than the oral polio vaccine and its administration requires trained health workers and sterile injection equipment and procedures, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Coincidentally, this comes weeks after the Catholic Church raised concerns about the safety of the OPV that was administered in August 1 to 5, with a booster dose scheduled for August 29 to September 2.

However, the church was concerned about whether the vaccine was laced with hormones that could cause infertility.