polio

Malawi and its neighbors plan to vaccinate 9.4 million children against polio in the coming week to combat a suspected outbreak.

As researchers test existing vaccines for nonspecific protection against COVID-19, immunologists are working to understand how some inoculations protect against pathogens they weren’t designed to fend off.

Jean Macnamara, a pioneer in the treatment of polio patients and the subject of this issue’s Foundations, comes to life in the form of a Google Doodle to celebrate what would have been her 121st birthday.

The medical scientist made important contributions to polio treatment and Australian environmental policy—despite substantial resistance.

Health officials are rushing a genetically engineered product into the field to counter uncontained outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio.

In rare instances, the live virus in oral polio vaccines can mutate and become infectious, causing new outbreaks.

Children with acute flaccid myelitis are more likely to have antibodies against the viral family in their spinal fluid than are children without the illness.

Researchers identify a possible driver of acute flaccid myelitis, a polio-like disease diagnosed in more than 500 children over the last few years.

Dozens of cases of acute flaccid myelitis have occurred this year, and while it resembles polio, health officials have ruled out poliovirus.

Julius Youngner collaborated with Jonas Salk on the polio vaccine, and later identified interferon gamma and contributed to an equine influenza vaccine.

Using epidemiological and laboratory data, scientists have mapped out a sequence of mutations through which the attenuated oral polio vaccine reverts to a virulent virus.

Researchers are developing polio vaccines based on the viral capsid alone. When produced in recombinant systems, these could eliminate the need to propagate live poliovirus for vaccine production. 

A selection of notable quotes from the American Society for Microbiology’s annual meeting

Researchers develop new attenuated viruses that could support the eradication effort.

As the world inches closer to polio eradication, laboratories studying the virus will have to bolster biosafety standards. Eventually, most will need to stop working with the pathogen entirely.

It’s been more than a year since the country has reported a case of wild poliovirus, according to the World Health Organization. 

The eradication of smallpox set the standard for the global elimination of a devastating infectious disease. Will the ongoing polio and guinea worm campaigns be as successful?

Ebola, MERS, and enterovirus D68; polio eradication efforts; new regulations on potentially dangerous research