Polio is spreading in Britain for the first time in almost 40 years, health officials have warned, as they have declared a national incident and urged people to make sure they are vaccinated.
Britain was declared polio-free in 2003 and the last wildlife case was detected in 1984, making the current outbreak the first transmission event since the 1980s.
On Wednesday, the UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) announced that a vaccine-derived polio virus had been detected in North and East London wastewater in February and April, suggesting which had spread among individuals.
Health experts believe the virus was probably imported from a person who was recently given an oral polio vaccine containing live virus, which was then spilled with feces, entering the sewers of London.
Poliomyelitis can be transmitted by poor hand hygiene and, less frequently, by coughing and sneezing. The virus multiplies in the gut and infected people excrete large amounts of virus in their feces for several weeks.
Although the rare vaccine-derived polio virus is collected each year in Britain’s wastewater, the latter virus has mutated over time and is now classified as a “vaccine-derived” type 2 poliovirus ( VDPV2), which behaves more like wild polio.
It can rarely infect the spinal cord and the base of the brain, causing paralysis, usually in the legs, which lasts for hours or days. If the respiratory muscles are affected, it can be life-threatening.
Lower uptake of vaccines in London
Children are usually vaccinated against polio in Britain, but officials are particularly concerned that vaccination among young people is lower in London than in the rest of the country, with about one in 10 not being vaccinated and in the UK. about 30 percent without increase when they are teenagers.
North London has some of the worst rates of polio vaccine in the country, with about a third of children in Hackney and the city of London failing for the first time in 12 months, and almost a fourth. part of children at 24 months.
Three-dose coverage across the capital was less than 85% in eight of London’s 33 local authorities in the 2020-21 school year, and about a third of children have not had pre-school or adolescent reinforcement.
A recent UKHSA report also found that in Hillingdon, west London, only 35 per cent of teenagers had received a boost against polio, the country’s worst absorption.