LONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) – Britain is launching a boosted polio vaccination campaign for children in London aged under 10, after confirming the virus is spreading in the capital for the first time since the 1980s.
The UK Health Security Agency identified 116 polio viruses from 19 sewage samples this year in London. It first raised the alarm about finding the virus in sewage samples in June. Read more
The levels of poliovirus found since then and the genetic diversity indicated that transmission was occurring in some London boroughs, the agency said on Wednesday.
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No cases have yet been identified but, to anticipate a possible outbreak, doctors will now invite children aged 1-9 for booster shots, alongside a wider catch-up campaign already announced. Read also : Man City fans will be wearing modern scarves next season. Immunization rates across London vary, but are on average below the 95% coverage rate that the World Health Organization suggests is needed to keep polio under control.
Polio, spread mainly through fecal matter contamination, used to kill and paralyze thousands of children every year worldwide. There is no cure, but vaccination has brought the world closer to ending the wild, or naturally occurring, form of the disease. It paralyzes less than 1% of children who are infected.
The virus found in London sewage is mainly the vaccine-like virus, which is found when children vaccinated with a special type of live vaccine – now only used abroad – shed the virus in their faeces. This harmless virus can be passed between unvaccinated children, and in doing so, can mutate back into a more dangerous version of the virus, and cause illness.
Last month, the United States found a case of paralytic polio outside New York in an unvaccinated individual, its first in a decade. The UKHSA said the case was genetically linked to the virus seen in London. Read more
Britain is also expanding surveillance for polio to other sites outside London to see if the virus has spread further. The risk to the wider population is assessed as low because most people are vaccinated even if rates are below the optimal levels to prevent spread.
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Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Editing by Alex Richardson, Kirsten Donovan
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