Polimyelitis in Dundee, 1962

Abstract

An outbreak of poliomyelitis involving 40 patients occurred during the early summer of 1962 in the city of Dundee, particularly in certain new housing areas in the north-eastern part of the city. The causal virus was poliovirus type 1. An interesting feature was that the main attack was on children below the age of 6 years; this was not suprising in view of the probable age distribution of both natural and acquired antibody in the population. Trivalent attenuated vaccine, given orally, was used on a large scale in an effort to curtail the outbreak; after 3 weeks of intensive campaigning, and when approximately half of the population had received a single dose of vaccine, the outbreak came to an abrupt end. An intratypic serodifferentiation method was used to distinguish between wild and vaccine type poliovirus isolated from patients who had received live vaccine.[long dash]Authors.