Exercise POSE: Final Report

Exercise POSE was commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe and conducted by the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) as a table top exercise over a two-day period on 14 and 15 December 2011. The exercise was prompted by the report of the 22nd meeting (2009) of the European Regional Certification Commission for Poliomyelitis Eradication (RCC).

The main purpose of Exercise POSE was to stimulate participants to critically review and update their national plans on responding to the detection of wild polioviruses (WPV) and vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPV). The exercise addressed communication, coordination and collaboration at an international and national level. This final report evaluates the exercise, identifying challenges, successes and lessons learned, and it offers conclusions and recommendations.