Breaking New Ground in Polio Eradication!

Members of SACEMA’s Modelling and Analytics Response Team (SMART) have developed a novel method to estimate immunity to poliovirus type 2 (PV2), and we’ve successfully applied it to the South African context. By using district-level data on vaccination, live births, and population sizes from 2017 to 2022, we’ve provided a clearer picture of which areas are most at risk. Read our paper, published recently in Elsevier’s Vaccine: here.

This innovative approach addresses concerns raised by the World Health Organization on zero-dose children (ZDC). It offers an alternative measure to the traditional ZDC metric, offering public health officials a more comprehensive tool for planning and decision-making in the fight against polio. A huge thanks goes to our collaborators, especially those at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for their expertise and funding that made this work possible.

This is a major step forward in understanding and ultimately eradicating polio. Stay tuned for more updates from our research, including extending this method to older age groups and other poliovirus serotypes!