Researchers Say New Vaccine Better For Polio Hot Spots
By: Import User
Updated: December 3, 2008
(Boston, MA) -- A new vaccine that targets the most common form of polio works four times better than the one that targets all three types of the disease.
A commentary in the "New England Journal of Medicine" says the newer vaccine, or monovalent vaccine, may help speed up the battle to eradicate polio.
Researchers looked at two studies of the three-year-old vaccine and found a person could get much more immunity from the monovalent vaccine, than they could from the multi-strain vaccine.
Polio is no longer a problem for much of the globe, but it is still found in Nigeria, northern India, and along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
An Egyptian study considered in the research found that more than 50-percent of children were protected against polio when they received the monovalent vaccine, compared to just over 32-percent who were given the multi-strain version.
A Nigerian study showed an even larger difference, with 67-percent of kids getting the new vaccine protected compared just 16-percent with the conventional vaccine.
Helen Jenkins with Imperial College London says the new vaccine "substantially improves the prospects for accelerating elimination in northern Nigeria."
(Copyright 2008 by Newsroom Solutions)
