The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners GAVI Alliance (formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) and Panacea Biotec, announced the efficacy of a new double-strain oral polio vaccine in its fight for global polio eradication.
As reported in The Lancet on October 26, 2010, the 2008 study conducted in India administered single-, double-, and triple-strain polio vaccines to 830 infants at birth and then again 30 days later. Blood samples were taken to gauge the rise in antibody levels before vaccination and then before and after each dose.
In the head-to-head trial, the new double-strain vaccine (known as bOPV), which targets the two prevailing types of poliovirus simultaneously, proved more effective than the traditional triple-strain vaccine, and similarly effective as existing single-strain vaccines. bOPV has the advantage of being administered in a single oral dose.
Researchers have concluded that bOPV may already be responsible for reductions in polio cases witnessed in India alone.
