Skip to main content
ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #61230
Title: STABILISING ORAL POLIOVACCINE AT HIGH AMBIENT TEMPERATURES

Author
item NEWMAN, JOHN - YALE UNIVERSITY
item TIRRELL, S - YALE UNIVERSITY
item ULMAN, C - YALE UNIVERSITY
item PIATTI, PATRICIA - 1940 01 05
item BROWN, FRED - YALE UNIVERSITY

Submitted to: Vaccine
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/30/1995
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: One of the problems in oral vaccination against polio myelitis with the modified-live Sabin virus strain is the difficulty in retaining potency, i.e. effectiveness, when the vaccines cannot be kept cold. The purpose of this experiment was to determine the factors that lead to the loss of viability at high ambient temperatures. Basing our approach on previous studies with foot-and-mouth disease virus, we found that the loss of viability is caused by an enzyme within polio virus particles. This loss can be greatly inhibited by keeping the vaccines under slightly acid conditions.

Technical Abstract: The oral poliovaccine strains lose infectivity when they are stored above refrigerator temperatures. These losses increase rapidly at the high temperatures encountered in tropical countries, thus causing problems if the cold chain is inadequate. Attempts to minimize these losses have generally relied on the addition of salts such as MgC12. In this paper we show that the fall in infectivity, which is due to the hydrolysis of the genomic RNA by the RNA polymerase within the virus particle, can be greatly inhibited by the suppression of this enzymatic activity. This can be achieved simply be reducing the pH below 7.