L10

Polio ? Vaccination is the only effective method of preventing poliomyelitis. Both the inactivated polio vaccine and the live, attenuated, orally administered polio vaccine have established efficacy in preventing poliovirus infection and paralytic poliomyelitis.
? Inactivated poliovirus (Salk) vaccine: Because the inactivated vaccine cannot cause poliomyelitis, it is safe for use in immunocompromised persons and their contacts. The disadvantages of this inactivated vaccine are: 1) administration is by injection only; and 2) it provides less gastrointestinal immunity, resulting in the possibility of asymptomatic infection of the gastrointestinal tract with wild poliovirus, which could be transmitted to other persons. ? Attenuated live poliovirus (Sabin) vaccine: Advantages of this vaccine include: 1) it can be administered orally; 2) it provides life-long protection from poliovirus for more than 95 % of recipients after the primary three-dose series; and 3) it provides early intestinal immunity. The main disadvantage of attenuated live virus vaccine is a small risk of infection, estimated to be 1 per 2.4 million doses.