Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) workshop

Moscow, Russian Federation, November 2009

At WHO/Europe’s regional polio reference laboratory in Moscow, local virologists met to receive training on PCR and its application for the detection and rapid characterization of polioviruses and other enteroviruses.

This modern method affords higher sensitivity while drastically reducing investigation time and potential false results due to nucleic acids carry-over. The laboratory in Moscow was expected to switch completely to the new method in early 2010 and start a new era of poliovirus detection in the newly independent states (NIS).

The workshop was part of the global WHO polio laboratory network’s commitment to advance new methodologies and to detect importations of wild polioviruses into the European Region as quickly and precisely as possible.

WHO headquarters and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States provided financial and technical support that made the workshop possible.