Some aspects of epidemiological relevance of the behavior of poliomyelitis in children of less than one year of age in an area of Greater S. Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

Some characteristics of epidemiological relevance of the behavior of poliomyelitis in some Health Districts of Greater S. Paulo were studied, special emphasis being put on its occurrence in children of less than one year of agre. Next, the results of serological investigation, performed by means of neutralization tests, on pregnant women attended by Health Centers in sixteen Health Districts of Greater S. Paulo were analysed. Based on these observations the authors draw attention to certain conditions poliovirus infection in children. The immunization of pregnant women with Salk vaccine, during the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy, or, alternatively, the immunization of children with oral trivalent Sabin-type vaccine in the period before the age of two months, possibly about the third day after birth, is proposed; without, however, any change in the normal later application of the basic immunization project recommended by the official Vaccination Calendar. Such steps would aim at the elimination of conceivable immunity lacunas in children of less than one year of age.