Lots of news breaking in the media that around 1 million children aged 1 to 9 years are to be offered a booster polio vaccination.
This follows the discovery of polio virus in the sewage from eight north and east London boroughs after the initial discovery some months ago. (Note: Ealing is not affected, but Brent is on the list.)
From what I’m seeing from various scientists, it appears that someone(s) have been vaccinated abroad with the live oral polio vaccine (which we don’t use in UK) and it has spread through close contact in the community – as is known to occasionally happen, which is why we don’t use it! It seems this spread has continued and the weakened virus in the vaccine seems to be mutating back towards the more virulent wild form of the polio virus. And that’s not good news.
If you have children in the target group, you do not need to do anything: the NHS will invite teh children over the next weeks starting with the six affected boroughs.
Meanwhile DON’T PANIC but do ensure you and your children maintain good hygiene as polio is spread via the faecal-oral route.
Here are a number of news items:
* NHS website on Polio
* Today’s UKHSA press release
* Guardian news report
* Twitter thread from one of our top epidemiologists