Guillain-Barré syndrome: surveillance and cost of treatment strategies

Guillain-Barré syndrome is the most common non-polio cause of AFP.3 As Guillain-Barré syndrome occurs globally at a predictable annual rate of approximately 1 in 100 000 children under 15 years of age, this threshold serves as a useful reference point to assess whether countries and sub-country administrative regions' surveillance systems are adequately sensitive to detect polio paralysis cases.4 Because of the subclinical nature of the vast majority of polio infections, supplementary surveillance includes environmental surveillance (searching for poliovirus in sewage systems) and enterovirus surveillance in other submitted laboratory specimens.