‘It’s completely preventable’: Polio vaccine campaign to be rolled out this summer following low uptake across north London

The samples containing poliovirus came from Beckton sewage works, which serves four million people. Photograph: diamond geezer / Flickr

A polio vaccine catch-up is being unrolled because of low uptake – after samples of the potentially paralysing virus were found in sewage in north London last year.

More than 378,200 children were jabbed between August and the middle of March after an urgent campaign, with 157,600 vaccines in the first two months.

Heath experts discovered polio samples at the Beckton treatment network in the spring of 2022 and expanded testing across north London and other cities in England.

Scientists said they have not found any new samples since early November, which “suggests transmission in London has significantly reduced”.

Polio can have serious consequences, including paralysis. It can be life-threatening if it affects the muscles used for breathing.

The last case of polio in the UK was in 1984 and the new discovery caused alarm.

Since early 2022, experts have found polio in 135 isolates from 30 samples from sewage in Barnet, Brent, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, and Waltham Forest.

The World Health Organisation said the strain of polio could cause serious illness in people not fully vaccinated. No paralytic cases have been reported in the UK, but the virus recently caused paralysis in people in the USA and Israel.

Polio can also cause symptoms such as fever, headaches and muscle pain, and can also lead to complications that affect the brain and nerves, such as muscle weakness.

The NHS will be running a vaccine catch-up programme in the summer term, which also includes other childhood vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella.

Dr Vanessa Saliba, consultant epidemiologist at the UK Health Security Agency, said: “While there are early signs of reduced spread of the poliovirus in London, we need to continue to improve uptake of childhood vaccines in all communities.

“Until we reach every last child, we cannot be sure that we will not see a case of paralysis. Even a single case of paralysis from polio would be a tragedy, as it is completely preventable.”

Health bosses are still concerned as take-up rates among Londoners lag behind the rest of the country. Just 65 per cent of five-year-olds are vaccinated in London, compared with 83 per cent across England. The picture is higher for one years-olds, with 87 per cent vaccinated, compared with 92 per cent in England.

Hackney GPs last year wrote to parents urging them to get their children vaccinated.

Dr Tehseen Khan, a GP at Spring Hill Practice and joint clinical director of  Springfield Park Primary Care Network, said he was worried about the “very low childhood vaccination uptake”.

Doctors warned parents that skipping these vaccines “leaves us vulnerable to an outbreak of polio and other vaccine-preventable infections such as measles”.

There was a measles outbreak among 400 children in Hackney and Haringey in 2018/19, and some children had to be treated in hospital.

GPs urged parents to get their children’s vaccines updated and contact their surgery if they needed to get them booked.