Bangladesh will be switching to a new polio vaccine and declared 23 April 2016, as ‘National SWITCH Day’. The country will be joining 156 countries and territories around the world in a synchronized two-week window period (17 April – 1 May, 2016) which represents a milestone event towards polio eradication. The announcement was made today to the media by the country’s National Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) at a press briefing in Dhaka.
The ‘SWITCH’ refers to the replacement of all trivalent oral polio vaccines (tOPV) with a new bivalent oral polio vaccine (bOPV) in the routine immunization program. The tOPV protects against three types of poliovirus. As there have been no reported cases of type 2 poliovirus since 1999, the ‘Global Certification Committee’ of WHO declared the world free from wild polio virus type 2 in 2015. The newly introduced bOPV contains only type 1 and type 3 poliovirus. The switch will also involve disposing of all remaining stocks of tOPV.
WHO Country Office for Bangladesh is working closely with the EPI in the move to recall all trivalent vaccines and distribution of the new vaccines. The Surveillance Medical Officers (SMO) network of WHO is providing technical support and also ensuring that the old vaccines are disposed of safely.
In 2012, WHO adopted ‘Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-18’ to eradicate polio from the world. Bangladesh along with other member states of the SEAR-WHO received its polio-free certification in 2014 and the last case of the disease was reported in 2006 in the country.