Make sure children have polio vaccine to prevent outbreak, urge scientists

London’s public health chief has warned residents not to underestimate the danger of infectious diseases as the search continued for the source of a polio virus outbreak in the capital.

Professor Kevin Fenton, of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, said it was “absolutely critical” for parents to ensure their children’s vaccines were up to date.

Health officials were today continuing the search for the source of the polio virus — which causes the potentially debilitating and, in rare cases, deadly disease — after several samples were detected in routine tests at Beckton sewage works. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is working with the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control and Thames Water. They are targeting six unnamed north and east boroughs.

Professor Fenton said: “The detection of vaccine-derived polio virus in sewage samples is a note of caution that we should not underestimate the ability of infectious diseases to get around our defences. For this reason, it is absolutely critical that families in London ensure that they have had all of their routine vaccinations that protect against polio.

“Please check your child’s red book or contact your GP practice to book an appointment. Viruses are good at finding chinks in our armour and vaccines are our best defence against serious and potentially life-changing diseases.”

Kripen Dhrona, chief executive of the British Polio Fellowship, told the Standard: “The situation’s not critical but it’s worrying. At the moment there is no actual case of polio, but it only takes one case for it to come into the UK, as we found with Covid.

“We would urge people, if they have not done so already, to make sure their children are vaccinated, and to contact their doctor if they don’t know – and also for themselves, if they are not sure they have had the vaccine in the past.”

The detection of polio virus is the first known community transmission in the UK in almost 40 years. The UKHSA has declared a “national incident”.

It is thought that a small number of people in north or east London — probably an extended family or people known to one another — have the virus.

The polio vaccine is given in three doses to babies, followed by boosters for toddlers and teenagers, as part of the NHS’s routine vaccination programme. Uptake in London is lower than the national average, at 89 per cent by age two. The target is 95 per cent.

Health chiefs believe the infected person may have travelled to the UK earlier this year after receiving the oral vaccine in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Nigeria. These countries use a “live” virus as a vaccine. The UK polio vaccine switched from oral drops to an injectable inactivated vaccine in 2004.