With the assistance of the NIH Office of Science Policy, the U.S. National Authority for Containment of Poliovirus (U.S. NAC) has contacted all registered Institutional Biosafety Committee Chairs and/or Co-Chairs to request their assistance in sharing information about the recently launched National Inventory for Poliovirus Containment (NIPC). The Chairs/Co-Chairs were asked to forward information about the national inventory online survey to principal investigators. This survey is being conducted to 1) identify facilities in the United States that possess any materials that could potentially contain poliovirus and 2) collect laboratory inventory data of materials potentially containing poliovirus.

Poliovirus containment is a key objective of World Health Organization (WHO)’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative and Global Action Plan (GAPIII). Per GAPIII, each country is required to complete a national inventory of poliovirus-containing materials. The NIPC was launched because of guidance issued by WHO on the handling of poliovirus potentially infectious materials (PIM), material collected in a time and place where wild poliovirus (WPV) circulated or oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) was in use.

Investigators are being asked to complete the survey if their laboratory tests, extracts, handles, or stores biological samples from humans, experimentally infected animals, sewage, or environmental waters. The survey questions are intended to identify laboratories that possess any materials that could potentially contain poliovirus, and it is important to note that potentially infectious materials are identified on the basis of where and when the samples were collected, not on the basis of any test results. Additional information about the survey can be found on the U.S. NAC’s website at https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/polioviruscontainment/NIPC.htm.