Annual report of the Australian National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory 2010-2011

Australia conducts clinical surveillance for cases of polio-like illness in children in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended surveillance criteria for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP). AFP cases are ascertained either by clinicians notifying the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit or designated nurses enrolling cases as part of the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance system at four sentinel tertiary paediatric hospitals. The National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory (NERL), formerly the National Poliovirus Reference Laboratory, is accredited by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the testing of faecal specimens from cases of AFP and operates as a Poliovirus Regional Reference Laboratory for the Western Pacific Region. In 2010 and 2011, for the 3rd and 4th consecutive years, Australia met the WHO AFP surveillance performance indicator. This is indicative of a sensitive surveillance system capable of detecting an imported case of polio in children. However, the faecal collection rate for the virological investigation of AFP cases was below the WHO surveillance performance indicator in both years and represented a gap in Australia's polio surveillance. Enterovirus and environmental surveillance were established in Australia as virological surveillance to complement the clinical surveillance schemes. No poliovirus was detected by the clinical or virological surveillance schemes in 2010 or 2011 and Australia maintained its polio-free status. India was declared polio-free in January 2012, a significant step towards global polio eradication, leaving Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan as the remaining countries endemic for wild poliovirus.