Development of auditor teams underway to certify poliovirus-essential facilities in the WHO European Region

Training of national auditors to support GAPIII, the WHO global action plan for poliovirus containment, took place on 26–30 November 2018 in Moscow, Russian Federation. The course aimed to strengthen national containment certification capacity in Belarus and the Russian Federation by building a competent audit team in line with the GAPIII Containment Certification Scheme (CCS).

Background

In accordance with GAPIII, all Member States that declared their intention to retain poliovirus materials in 1 or more specialized poliovirus essential facilities (PEF) must establish a National Authority for Containment (NAC) that will be responsible for national certification of these PEFs against GAPIII requirements.

The certification process described in the CCS includes an audit of each PEF, which must be performed on the national level by a competent audit team designated by the NAC. Audits must be conducted on a regular basis to renew an awarded certificate of containment, which will be valid for 3 years.

To date, 11 Member States in the Region are planning to host 43 PEFs. These Member States should have well established mechanisms for implementing all necessary risk mitigation measures to prevent any accident or incident in a PEF that could lead to a poliovirus containment breach and subsequent poliovirus reintroduction into the community. This will be especially critical in the post-eradication era, when vaccination against poliomyelitis will end and population susceptibility to the virus will increase.