The RITM National Polio Laboratory (NPL) hosted the World Health Organization-Western Pacific Regional Office (WHO-WPRO) Third Regional Hands-on Training on Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction Techniques for Rapid Detection and Characterization of Polioviruses from November 11-15, 2019 at the RITM Training Center.

Alongside WHO-WPRO Representative Ms. Analisa Bautista, distinguished guests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Dr. Everardo Vega and Ms. Chelsea Harrington led the lecture and laboratory exercises for the 11 participants from Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

The training equipped the participants with the know-how on using intratypic differentiation (ITD) testing procedure to detect poliovirus and differentiate between types of wild, vaccine derived, and Sabin poliovirus. 

Since the last training was held in May 2016, this course in ITD was deemed necessary to maintain the proficiency and to improve the ability of the Global Polio Laboratory Network (GPLN) laboratories in the Western Pacific Region. Furthermore, the training served as an avenue to introduce and demonstrate the use of the new version of the ITD kit (version 5.1). 

The training is under the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) which aims to eradicate the circulation of wild poliovirus. 

by Allenor Enciso, Communication and Engagement Office