Five-year surveillance of acute flaccid paralysis in Malaysia

The nation-wide surveillance for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) was implemented in Malaysia in 1995 and further intensified in 1996 as part of the World Health Organization's (WHO) certification process for polio eradication in the Western Pacific Region. Clinical data on AFP cases during a 5-year surveillance period from 1997 to 2001 were compiled and analysed.

Based on 517 cases of AFP reported during this 5-year period, the overall rate of AFP was 1.2 per 100 000 children below 15 years old. The major clinical diagnosis associated with AFP were Guillain-Barre syndrome (30.2%), central nervous system infection (16.2%), transverse myelitis (10.6%) non-polio enterovirus infection (6.2%), and hypokalaemic paralysis (5.2%). This unusual pattern with an excess of CNS infection and non-polio enterovirus infection was attributed to the outbreak of enterovirus 71 infection nation-wide in 1997. According to the WHO virological classification, there was no case of poliomyelitis due to wild poliovirus. Three cases were 'polio compatible', there were no cases of vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP), while 62 cases (12.0%) were merely classified as 'non-polio AFP'.

Overall, these data suggest the absence of circulation of wild poliovirus in Malaysia from 1997 to 2001. The pattern of AFP in this study is different from other published reports.