On 17 March 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that health officials in Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had detected cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus. The WHO said the Burundian government had declared the detection of the virus a national public health emergency after three cases were confirmed. The Conversation Africa’s Wale Fatade spoke to virologist Oyewale Tomori, who maps out the terrain of polio viruses, and their mutations, as well as what’s happening on the vaccine front.
