All London children under the age of 10 to get Polio vaccine
By Julia Gregory, Local Democracy Reporter
Nearly one million children in London are to get polio vaccines after samples of the illness were discovered in London sewers.
Heath experts discovered samples in sewage from the Beckton sewage treatment network this spring.
Since then they have expanded their testing across London and found polio in 116 isolates from 19 sewage samples across London.
The last case of polio in the UK was discovered in 1984 and Europe was declared polio free in 2003.
Polio is caused by a virus that spreads easily from person to person, mainly from faeces, and can be spread by poor hand hygiene if someone infected does not wash their hands after using the toilet and touches food or water used by others.
It can also be spread less commonly through coughing and sneezing. In rare cases it can infect a person’s spinal cord, causing paralysis.
Most people with polio will fight off the infection without even realising they were infected, and will not know they have symptoms, and a small number will have a flu-like illness three to 21 days after they’re infected.
The virus is likely to have been shed in the faeces of people who have recently been vaccinated in a country which uses the oral polio vaccine, which is no longer used in the UK and passed on to a small number of people.
The UK Health Security Agency says it is now “urgently offering” the polio booster doses to 900,000 children under the age of 10 across London to boost protection.
Health bosses stressed there have not been any confirmed cases of polio and the risk to the wider population is low.
However they said that it is clear the virus has spread within the community and urged families to make sure their polio vaccines are up to date.
Families should wait for an invite from their their GP to get their children boosted – and the vaccination programme will start in the eight boroughs where samples have been found and vaccination rates are low.
(Picture: Rawpixel)
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