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National Immunization Campaigns with Oral Polio Vaccine Reduce All-Cause Mortality: A Natural Experiment within Seven Randomized Trials.

Friday, 16th of March 2018

Front Public Health. 2018 Feb 2;6:13. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2018.00013. eCollection 2018.

National Immunization Campaigns with Oral Polio Vaccine Reduce All-Cause Mortality: A Natural Experiment within Seven Randomized Trials.

Andersen A¹, Fisker AB¹, Rodrigues A², Martins C², Ravn H^1,3, Lund N¹, Biering-Sørensen S¹, Benn CS^1,3, Aaby P^1,2,3.

Author information

1

Research Centre for Vitamins and Vaccines (CVIVA), Bandim Health Project, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark.

2

Bandim Health Project, Indepth Network, Bissau, Guinea-Bissau.

3

Institute for Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.

 

Abstract https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2018.00013/full

 

BACKGROUND:

A recent WHO review concluded that live BCG and measles vaccine (MV) may have beneficial non-specific effects (NSEs) reducing mortality from non-targeted diseases. NSEs of oral polio vaccine (OPV) were not examined. If OPV vaccination campaigns reduce the mortality rate, it would suggest beneficial NSEs.

SETTING:

Between 2002 and 2014, Guinea-Bissau had 15 general OPV campaigns and other campaigns with OPV plus vitamin A supplementation (VAS), VAS-only, MV, and H1N1 vaccine. In this period, we conducted seven randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with mortality as main outcome.

METHODS:

Within these RCTs, we assessed whether the mortality rate was lower after-campaign than before-campaign. We used Cox models with age as underlying time and further adjusted for low birth-weight, season and time trend in mortality. We calculated the adjusted mortality rate ratio (MRR) for after-campaign vs before-campaign.

RESULTS:

The mortality rate was lower after OPV-only campaigns than before, the MRR being 0.81 (95% CI = 0.68-0.95). With each additional dose of campaign-OPV the mortality rate declined further (MRR = 0.87 (95% CI: 0.79-0.96) per dose) (test for trend, p = 0.005). No other type of campaign had similar beneficial effects. Depending on initial age and with follow-up to 3 years of age, the number needed to treat with campaign-OPV-only to save one life was between 68 and 230 children.

CONCLUSION:

Bissau had no case of polio infection so the results suggest that campaign-OPV has beneficial NSEs. Discontinuation of OPV-campaigns in low-income countries may affect general child mortality levels negatively.