Chronic Progressive Poliomyelitis Secondary to Vaccination of an Immunodeficient Child

Abstract

We investigated an immunodeficient child in whom chronic progressive poliomyelitis developed after she had received live oral poliovirus vaccine. Poliovirus, Type II, was isolated from throat and stool during life and from several sites within the brain at autopsy. The brain isolate was classified as vaccine-like on the basis of temperature sensitivity and antigenic markers. However, in the monkey neurovirulence test, the brain isolate produced moderately severe lesions throughout the spinal cord and brain-stem and appeared nonvaccine-like. Thus, the brain isolate demonstrated a dissociation between the antigenic and neurovirulence markers.