Polio virus spreading in London, UK health service launches booster campaign for kids
Police have found four children safe and well after they were taken from The Leap, north of Mackay in Queensland yesterday
The UK is launching a polio vaccine booster campaign for children in London aged under 10, after confirming that the virus is spreading in the capital for the first time since the 1980s.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has identified 116 polio viruses from 19 sewage samples this year in London. It first raised the alert in June.
The levels of polio virus found since and the genetic diversity, indicated transmission was taking place in a number of London boroughs, the agency said.
No cases have been identified but in a bid to get ahead of a potential outbreak GPs will invite children aged one to nine for booster vaccines, alongside a wider campaign already announced.
Immunisation rates across London vary but are on average below the 95 per cent coverage rate the World Health Organization suggests is needed to keep polio under control.
Polio, spread mainly through contamination by faecal matter, used to kill and paralyse thousands of children annually worldwide.
There is no cure, but vaccination brought the world close to ending the wild, or naturally occurring, form of the disease. It paralyses less than 1 per cent of children who are infected.
Australia is free of polio, but the disease still affects survivors like Gillian Thomas, and she fears others might be experiencing "invisible" symptoms without even knowing.
The virus found in London sewage is mainly the vaccine-like virus, which is found when children vaccinated with a particular kind of live vaccine — now only used overseas — shed the virus in their faeces.
This harmless virus can transmit between unvaccinated children, and while doing so, can mutate back into a more dangerous version of the virus.
Last month, the United States found a case of paralytic polio outside New York in an unvaccinated individual. The UKHSA said the case was genetically linked to the virus seen in London. 
The UK is also expanding surveillance for polio to other sites outside London.
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.
Reuters
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