17th meeting of the Regional Certification Commission for the Polio Endgame in the Region of the Americas: Meeting report 6-7 November 2023. Virtual meeting

The 17th meeting of the Regional Certification Commission (RCC) for the Polio Endgame in the Region of the Americas was held virtually on 6 - 7 November 2023. During the meeting, the RCC discussed and validated 5 containment reports and 1 of the 2 expected resubmissions of the annual report. The country validation results, and the final meeting report were discussed and approved by all RCC members. The objectives of the meeting were: to review the countries’ updated containment reports; to review the annual report from the 2 countries, following their resubmission in response to the RCC's information request and initial inquiries; and to review the validation questions and update the annual report template. The validation of the containment report is done in two parts: 1) the completion of the survey of facilities that potentially possess poliovirus materials that is dependent on the source of the list of facilities, the selection of facilities to participate, the analysis of facilities that did not respond the survey, the analysis of the responses, and a clear consolidation of the information, and 2) the validation by type of material that includes the inventory and proof of attestation of final disposal for infectious materials (IM) and potentially infectious materials (PIM) for the three poliovirus serotypes as well as untyped material which is considered as high risk and handled as type 2. The review methodology for the annual reports is described in the 16th RCC meeting report. The RCC provided specific comments and recommendations to the country’s National Certification Committees (NCC).