Welcome to the International Society for Vaccines

Skip to main content

Paper of the Month August 2011

Vaccine-derived poliomyelitis 12 years after infection in Minnesota

N Engl J Med. 2011 Jun 16;364(24):2316-23

Authors

DeVries AS, Harper J, Murray A, Lexau C, Bahta L, Christensen J, Cebelinski E, Fuller S, Kline S, Wallace GS, Shaw JH, Burns CC, Lynfield R.

Abstract

A 44-year-old woman with long-standing common variable immunodeficiency who was receiving intravenous immune globulin suddenly had paralysis of all four limbs and the respiratory muscles, resulting in death. Type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus was isolated from stool. The viral capsid protein VP1 region had diverged from the vaccine strain at 12.3% of nucleotide positions, and the two attenuating substitutions had reverted to the wild-type sequence. Infection probably occurred 11.9 years earlier (95% confidence interval [CI], 10.9 to 13.2), when her child received the oral poliovirus vaccine. No secondary cases were identified among close contacts or 2038 screened health care workers. Patients with common variable immunodeficiency can be chronically infected with poliovirus, and poliomyelitis can develop despite treatment with intravenous immune globulin.

Date