Vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis in Japan

Abstract

Despite WHO's recommendation to switch the poliomyelitis vaccine from oral polio vaccine (OPV) to inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in countries where polio elimination has been achieved, Japan has continued to use OPV. In Japan, OPV is given twice to children aged from 3 to 18 months.1 More than 10 years after the elimination of wild polio virus, tragic cases of vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP) continue to be reported every year—most recently in May, 2011. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare claims that IPV is still being developed by Japanese vaccine companies and that it will not be available until the end of 2012 at the earliest. The growing tension between the Government, which persists with domestically produced OPV, and the parents, who request IPV to avoid VAPP, has evoked huge media attention.