Fetal Damage After Accidental Polio Vaccination of an Immune Mother
Fetal damage after accidental polio vaccination of an immune mother A. E. BURTON, MB, MRCGP E. T. ROBINSON, MB, FRCGP W. F. HARPER, FRCS(Glas.), FRCOG E. J. BELL, PH.D, MRC.PATH J. F. BOYD, MD, FRCP(Edin.), FRC.PATH, FRCP(Glas.) SUMMARY. Irreparable damage to the anterior British National Formulary (1981) recommends the use horn cells of the cervical and thoracic cord was of inactivated polio vaccine in pregnancy. We have found in a 20-week-old fetus whose mother was failed to discover any reference to fetal infection after immune to poliomyelitis before conceiving but oral polio vaccine in pregnancy. We describe a fetus who was inadvertently given oral polio vaccine at with irreparable damage to the anterior horn cells of the 18 weeks gestation. Polio neutralizing antibody spinal cord whose mother was immune to poliomyelitis titres in sera, taken before and after pregnancy, prior to conceiving but who was accidentally given oral were identical and were at levels normally re- polio vaccine early in pregnancy. garded as providing protection. Unsuccessful at- tempts were made to isolate poliovirus from Case report extracts of fetal brain, lung, liver and placenta. on The patient was a 19-year-old unmarried girl, employed as a Fluorescent antibody tests were performed student nurse. She first consulted on 7 May 1980 because of various levels of the central nervous system and six weeks amenorrhoea, her last menstrual period being 26 on the left and right extensor forearm muscles. March 1980. She had previously taken the oral contraceptive Specific positive fluorescence to poliovirus 2 and Eugynon 30.
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