Health officials say parents should make sure their children have been vaccinated against the disease.
The virus that causes polio has been detected in a troubling number of wastewater samples in London, according to health officials. The disease was common in the UK in the 1950s but was eradicated in 2003.
The British Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) says the virus was likely brought to London by someone recently vaccinated overseas with a live form of the virus.
The agency says the risk is low, but parents should make sure their children are fully immunized against the disease.
“Most of the UK population will be protected from receiving the vaccine as a child, but in some communities with low vaccination coverage, people may be at risk,” says Vanessa Saliba, UKHSA consultant epidemiologist.
An inactivated polio vaccine is used in the UK as part of the childhood immunization program. It is given to babies three times before they are one year old, and then again at three and 14 years old.
In London, around 86% of children have received the first three doses, well below the rest of the UK, where the rate is over 92%.
Health officials have declared the return of the polio virus a “national accident” and informed the World Health Organization (WHO) of the situation.
sewer detection
Over the past four months, UKHSA has found polio virus in samples taken from Beckton Sewers, which serves a population of four million in North and East London.
Scientists believe the virus originated from someone who was immunized overseas with the live oral polio vaccine, which hasn’t been used in the UK since 2004.
This person likely had traces of the virus in their intestines, which were detected by sewer sampling.
In rare cases, this form of the virus can be passed on to other people and mutate into what is known as “vaccine-derived” polio.
Although it is weaker than the original or natural form of the disease, it can still cause serious illness, including paralysis, in unvaccinated people.
A small number of polio virus samples are detected in wastewater sampling annually, but this is the first time that a genetically linked set of samples has been found repeatedly over a period of months.
Health officials say this suggests there was some prevalence among people in London.
No actual cases of polio have been detected and there have been no reports of rare but severe symptoms in the UK.
Health Minister Sajid Javid told the BBC he was “not particularly concerned” about the detection of polio. He says the UK has a high vaccination rate against the virus, with no cases since 2003.
London’s public health system (NHS) has said it will contact parents of children under five in London who are out of date on their doses.
Rare disease
Polio is a rare disease and spreads after a person does not wash their hands properly after using the bathroom and then touches food or water consumed by others. The disease is also transmitted by coughing and sneezing, but this is rarer.
Most people have no symptoms and recover without even knowing they are infected. A small number have flu-like symptoms for up to three weeks.
There is no specific treatment, and victims of the infection must be hospitalized, receiving treatment for their symptoms.
In a very small number of cases – between one in a hundred and one in a thousand – the polio virus attacks the nerves of the spine and the base of the brain. This can cause paralysis, usually in the legs. If the respiratory muscles are affected, the disease can be fatal.
Vaccination is the only way to prevent polio.
In Brazil
In Brazil, all children under the age of five must be vaccinated according to a routine vaccination schedule and in the annual national campaign. The polio vaccination schedule consists of three doses of injectable vaccine (at 2, 4 and 6 months) and two additional booster doses with the drip vaccine.
This drop vaccine was created in Brazil by the American-Polish scientist Albert Bruce Sabin (1906-1993).
Polio is considered eradicated in Brazil. The last case of polio in Brazil was confirmed in March 1989, in ParaÃba. WHO certified the eradication of the disease in the country in 1994.
But according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Brazil is on the list of countries where there is a risk of a return of polio.
Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela are the countries in the Americas with a high risk of polio return, according to reports released by PAHO during the second half of 2021. According to the agency, the low rate vaccination in these places represents a danger for the entire continent, which has not registered a single case of the disease for exactly 30 years.
‘This text was originally published in https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-61921539‘
Source: Terra
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