Some Experts Fear Polio Could Make a Comeback

Some virologists and public health officials have long questioned whether childhood immunization against polio should end once the World Health Organization declares polio eradicated.

The WHO program is only monitoring cases of acute paralysis in people to decide whether the virus has been eliminated. Critics say water and sewage systems could still be contaminated, so polio vaccines should continue to be a routine part of child immunizations.

Konstantin M. Chumakov, a virologist at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, worries about the fate of the stores of polio virus kept in laboratories around the world.

“We are creating with our own hands an entire population of susceptibles,” Chumakov was quoted as saying in the March-April issue of The Sciences.

Although WHO plans to lock up research stores of polio virus in high-containment facilities, some virologists point to the potential for the virus to get back into the environment through biological warfare or overlooked polio samples.

Other critics of the polio eradication program in Third World countries say it should have been broadened to include other public health services.

“You can’t deliver a good eradication program without some level of support for basic health services,” Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during his visit to Bangladesh. “But here, there isn’t the energy or the money or the will to do everything in a place that has so many needs. At the end of the day you want to accomplish at least one thing.”