Polio Place

Joan L. Headley, Executive Director, PHI

In late 2013, Post-Polio Health International awarded $100,000 to the team of Antonio Toniolo, MD; Andreina Baj, MD; Martina Colombo, PhD – Laboratory of Medical Microbiology and Virology, Department of Biotechnology and Life Sciences, University of Insubria Medical Center, Varese, Italy, to expand its search for poliovirus genome in various populations.

The team’s work is enhanced by the expertise of Konstantin Chumakov, PhD, Associate Director for Research, Office of Vaccines Research and Review, FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation Research, Silver Spring, Maryland.

The goals are: 1) to complete the systematic search of poliovirus genomes in the Italian cohort of post-polio syndrome cases, and 2) to verify if poliovirus genomes are also present in aging polio survivors with “stable polio” (those aged >60 years that have not developed post- polio syndrome).

A Mid-Study Report was submitted to PHI and published in Post-Polio Health, Volume 31, Number 3, Summer, 2015.