Headlines 

• Poliovirus-essential facility (PEF) in Belgium awarded world’s first Certificate of Containment – a polio vaccine manufacturing facility in Belgium became the first ever PEF to receive a full Certificate of Containment (CC), approved by the Global Commission for the Certification of Eradication of Poliomyelitis (GCC).  This work is part of ongoing worldwide efforts to ensure the safe and secure containment of polioviruses in facilities that retain them.  More.
• Advance notification was received this week of a cVDPV2 isolated from an environmental sample in Papua New Guinea.  The virus was isolated only from the environment – no associated cases of paralysis have been detected.  The virus was isolated from a sample collected on 11 March, from Lae City, Morobe Province.  It has 19 mutations in VP1 genomic region and is genetically linked to cVDPV2-n from Indonesia, last detected there in June 2024.  At this time, there is no evidence of local transmission in Papua New Guinea with this event.  Nevertheless, health authorities in the country are treating this event as high risk and have notified WHO officially through the International Health Regulations and are implementing measures to address the situation.  Authorities are continuing to assess subnational immunity levels and implementing efforts to address coverage gaps; strengthening surveillance including conducting retrospective searches for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases; and continuing extensive field investigations, including sampling of healthy children to further assess potential circulation of the virus.   Partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, notably through our regional and country colleagues, continue to support local and national health authorities in these efforts.  The isolate will be officially reflected in next week’s global update.

Summary of new polioviruses this week, cases and positive environmental isolates:

• Angola:  one cVDPV2 case
• Côte d’Ivoire:  one cVDPV2-positive environmental sample
• Ethiopia:  three cVDPV2 cases
• Israel:  one cVDPV2-positive environmental sample