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ENVIRONMENTAL SURVEILLANCE OF POLIOVIRUS IN SEWAGE WATER AROUND THE INTRODUCTION PERIOD OF INACTIVATED POLIO VACCINE IN JAPAN

Saturday, 10th of January 2015

Japan does not come up very often in discussions of polio. This article reminds us that present or former users of OPV have no reason to be complacent in assuring, through environmental surveillance, the absence of poliovirus from their country.

ENVIRONMENTAL SURVEILLANCE OF POLIOVIRUS IN SEWAGE WATER AROUND THE INTRODUCTION PERIOD OF INACTIVATED POLIO VACCINE IN JAPAN

1. Tomofumi Nakamura1,2,
2. Mitsuhiro Hamasaki2,
3. Hideaki Yoshitomi2,
4. Tetsuya Ishibashi2,
5. Chiharu Yoshiyama2,
6. Eriko Maeda2,
7. Nobuyuki Sera2* and
8. Hiromu Yoshida1

- Author Affiliations

1.      ¹Department of Virology II, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 4-7-1 Gakuen, Musashimurayama-shi, Tokyo 208-0011, Japan

2.      ²Fukuoka Institute of Health and Environmental Sciences, Mukaizano 39, Dazaifu-shi, Fukuoka 818-0135, Japan

Abstract below; full text, with figures, is at http://aem.asm.org/content/early/2015/01/02/AEM.03575-14.full.pdf+html

Environmental virus surveillance was conducted at two independent sewage plants from urban and rural areas in the northern prefecture of the Kyushu district, Japan, to trace the polioviruses (PVs) within communities. Consequently, 83 PVs were isolated over a 34-month period from April 2010 to January 2013. The frequency of PV isolation at the urban plant was 1.5-times higher than that at the rural plant. Molecular sequence analysis of the viral VP1 gene identified all three serotypes among the PV isolates the most prevalent serotype being type 2 (46%). Nearly all poliovirus isolates exhibited more than one nucleotide mutation from the Sabin vaccine strains. During this study, inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) was introduced for routine immunization on September 1, 2012, replacing the live oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV). Interestingly, the frequency of PV isolation from sewage waters declined before OPV cessation at both sites. Our study highlights the importance of environmental surveillance to detect the excretion of PVs from an OPV-immunized population in a highly sensitive manner, during the OPV to IPV transition period.

FOOTNOTES

• ↵*Correspondence should be addressed to: Nobuyuki Sera
  , Fukuoka Institute of Health and Environmental Sciences, Mukaizano 39, Dazaifu-shi, Fukuoka 818-0135, Japan, Tel:+81-92-921-9945, Fax:+81-92-928-1203, E-mail: sera@fihes.pref.fukuoka.jp

• Copyright © 2015, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

The authors have paid a fee to allow immediate free access to this article.

Accepted manuscript posted online 2 January 2015, doi: 10.1128/AEM.03575-14 AEM.03575-14