Poliovirus Antibody Testing
Since poliovirus has appeared in the UK and the US, I have had scores of polio survivors, especially those who were not vaccinated, asking if they should be tested for antibodies to the three polioviruses, since those who had polio but are unvaccinated are only protected against the poliovirus type(s) that had infected them.
In the US, commercial laboratories - including the Mayo Clinic, Quest and ARUP - test for the presence of poliovirus antibodies, but they only test for Type 1 and Type 3 polio, since the wild Type 2 poliovirus is no longer circulating. Unfortunately it is a mutated Type 2 oral vaccine strain that currently is circulating and is not just being found in wastewater in the US, Canada, the UK and Israel. This Type 2 strain paralyzed a young, unvaccinated man in southern New York State. So, even if you had commercial poliovirus antibody testing, it wouldn’t reveal whether you had antibodies to the Type 2 virus that unfortunately is making the rounds.
What’s more, the CDC clearly states, "Demonstrating antibodies to poliovirus Types 1 and 3 does not reliably indicate protection against poliovirus Type 2. In the absence of the availability of testing for antibodies to all three serotypes, serologic testing is no longer recommended to assess immunity.”(1)
Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and internationally recognized as an expert in virology and immunology, says this about antibody testing: "If you were naturally infected and were never (fully) vaccinated, you should just get the whole series of polio vaccines. I wouldn't test. The test isn't very good; the test for polio antibodies also picks up antibodies for other enteroviruses (the family of viruses to which the polioviruses belong) which are common, and not just the poliovirus.” (2)
Sources: (1) - www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/pdfs/mm6601a6.pdf