Paralytic poliomyelitis continues to be an important disease affecting many children.
The strategy for poliomyelitis eradication includes routine immunization, surveillance
of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) and mopping-up activities. Environmental
monitoring, mainly involving the screening of waste water can provide evidence of
the circulation or absence of wild-type polioviruses. The present work has been
carried out to investigate the sequence divergence of neurovirulent derivatives of the
Sabin oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) strains, to establish epidemiological link
between isolates, and to determine poliovirus genotype which circulates in Egypt.
Enzyme Linked Immunoassay (ELIZA) and Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain
Reaction (RT-PCR) for intratypic differentiation have been used. Molecular analysis
of the VPI/2A junction region has been performed on 22 isolates using the dideoxy
chain termination method. Sequencing of the amplified region has been performed
using the automated genetic analyzer ABI prism 310. Forward and reverse
electropherograms were compared using sequencing alignment software version 2.
Phylogenetic analysis of the VPI/2A region was done using Clustal X software.