The British government is urgently recommending a polio booster vaccination for children in London. Viruses have been found several times in city sewage.

In London, all children aged one to nine years should have a polio booster shot. Background to the increasing discoveries of polio pathogens in sewage systems.

Earlier this year, poliovirus type 2 (PV2) was detected at a sewage treatment plant in Becton, east London. Further investigations also revealed pathogens in the sewers of other areas in the east and north-east of the British capital. In total, there were 116 viral detections in 19 samples collected between February and July.

So far, no diseases have been identified

According to the authority, only a few of them contained a virus of the type VDPV2, which originated from a previously released live vaccine. This is of great importance because it behaves like wild polio which occurs naturally and in rare cases can lead to cases of paralysis in unvaccinated individuals.

And according to what was reported by the British newspaper “The Guardian”, no cases of polio or paralysis were known. It is unclear whether or not how many children are infected. The level of poliovirus detected and the high genetic diversity among PV2 isolates indicate that there is “a certain level of transmission of the virus in the affected provinces, which may spread to neighboring areas”, according to the NHS. This indicates that the transmission bypassed a network close to a small number of people.

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