12126: RE: 12125: Polio: Slavin -- 2 replies

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "Walton, Robert" <waltonr@emh1.ftmeade.army.mil>

Sabin vaccine is administered orally.  It is the current "vaccine of choice"
against polio.  The Sabin orgainization's page at
http://www.sabin.org/vaccine%5Fscience%5Fpolio.htm  compares the advantages
and disadvantages of the Sabin (oral) and Salk (injectable) vaccines.   A
careful weighing of the advantages/disadvantages of each vaccine must
include the public health environment in which it is to be used.


Bob Walton

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From: Elizabeth Fitch <efitch@globalhealthaction.org>

The actual occurrence of polio being caused by the oral vaccine is
something
like 1 in every 2.5 million, according to the WHO.  I also am not a
doctor,
but I can see several reasons why the oral vaccine is being used in Haiti:

1) It is less expensive (about 8 cents per dose), and does not require
trained health workers or sterile injection equipment (an additional cost,
and difficult to come by in many countries).
2) In a mass immunization campaign, the oral vaccine is more effective in
stopping an outbreak than the IPV because the oral vaccine creates an
"intestinal immune response"  which keeps the poliovirus from multiplying
in
the intestines.  The injected vaccine does not have this effect.