Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jan 5;22(1):30.
doi: 10.1186/s12879-021-06951-6.

Poliovirus immunity among adults in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: a cross-sectional serosurvey

Vivian H Alfonso  1   2 , Arie Voorman  3 , Nicole A Hoff  1 , William C Weldon  4 , Sue Gerber  3 , Adva Gadoth  1 , Megan Halbrook  1 , Amelia Goldsmith  1 , Patrick Mukadi  5 , Reena H Doshi  1   6 , Guillaume Ngoie-Mwamba  7 , Trevon L Fuller  8 , Emile Okitolonda-Wemakoy  9 , Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum  5 , Anne W Rimoin  10
Affiliations

Poliovirus immunity among adults in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: a cross-sectional serosurvey

Vivian H Alfonso et al. BMC Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Background: Vaccination efforts to eradicate polio currently focus on children under 5 years of age, among whom most cases of poliomyelitis still occur. However, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), an outbreak of wild poliovirus type 1 occurred in 2010-2011 in which 16% of cases occurred among adults; in a related outbreak in the neighboring Republic of Congo, 75% of cases occurred among the same adult age-group. Given that infected adults may transmit poliovirus, this study was designed to assess adult immunity against polioviruses.

Methods: We assessed poliovirus seroprevalence using dried blood spots from 5,526 adults aged 15-59 years from the 2013-2014 Demographic and Health Survey in the DRC.

Results: Among adults in the DRC, 74%, 72%, and 57% were seropositive for neutralizing antibodies for poliovirus types 1, 2, and 3, respectively. For all three serotypes, seroprevalence tended to be higher among older age groups, those living in households with more children, and among women.

Conclusions: Protection against poliovirus is generally low among adults in the DRC, particularly for type 3 poliovirus. The lack of acquired immunity in adults suggests a potentially limited poliovirus circulation over the lifetime of those surveyed (spanning 1954 through 2014) and transmission of vaccine-derived poliovirus in this age group while underscoring the risk of these outbreaks among adults in the DRC.

Keywords: Adult immunity; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Demographic and Health Survey; Immunization; Polio; Poliovirus; Vaccine-preventable diseases.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Distribution of Polio seropositivity (%) against Sabin types 1, 2 and 3 for the 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DHS 2013–2014
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Distribution of Polio seropositivity (%) against Sabin type 1, 2 and 3 by age group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo DHS 2013–2014
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. CDC: Progress toward global polio eradication—Africa, 2011. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2012; 61(190–4). - PubMed
    1. WHO: Poliomyelitis: Fact sheet. 2018.
    1. Alleman M, Wannemuehler K, Weldon W, Kabuayi J, Ekofo F, Edidi S, Mulumba A, Mbule A, Ntumbannji R, Abiola T, et al. Factors contributing to outbreaks of wild poliovirus type 1 infection involving persons aged ≥15 years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2010–2011, informed by a pre-outbreak poliovirus immunity assessment. J Infect Dis. 2014;210(Suppl 1):S62–S73. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiu282. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Nathanson N, Kew OM. From emergence to eradication: the epidemiology of poliomyelitis deconstructed. Am J Epidemiol. 2010;172(11):1213–1229. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwq320. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO: Activités d’éradication de la poliomyélite (IEP) République Démocratique du Congo, 27 March 2020. In. Edited by MSP. Kinshasa, DRC; 2020.

Substances