UK- Britain has initiated a polio vaccine booster campaign for kids under 10 in London in an attempt to keep the resurging virus at bay.
The campaign follows the discovery of 116 polioviruses in 19 sewage samples in the country’s capital and financial hub by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
Health officials are urging children aged one to nine to receive booster immunizations even though no cases have yet been identified.
Each year, polio, which is primarily spread through feces, paralyzes and kills thousands of children worldwide.
Although there is no treatment, immunization has almost completely eradicated the disease’s wild, or naturally occurring, form.
Initial signs of polio include Fever, Headache, Vomiting, Tension in the neck, and pain in the limbs.
The majority of the virus detected in London sewage is the vaccine-like virus, which is discovered when children who have received a specific type of live vaccine emit the virus in their feces.
This virus is not hazardous, but it can evolve back into a more harmful form during transmission between unvaccinated children.
According to the World Health Organization, polio is still present in the wild and is considered to be endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The two main causes of outbreaks in other nations are imported instances or an inactive strain of received oral polio vaccination.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), many carriers of the poliovirus are asymptomatic, and one in four will get flu-like symptoms.
However, somewhere between one and five in a thousand cases can suffer from serious and life-threatening symptoms, like paralysis.
Even those who recover can have symptoms like muscle weakness and paralysis return years later in a long-lasting condition known as post-polio syndrome.
This virus is not hazardous, but it can evolve back into a more harmful form during transmission between unvaccinated children.
The United States discovered a case of paralytic polio in an unvaccinated person last month outside of New York. The case was genetically related to the virus identified in London, according to the UKHSA.
Additionally, the UK is extending its polio surveillance to locations outside of London. Even when vaccination rates are below the ideal levels to stop the spread, the risk to the larger community is considered to be low because the majority of people are protected.
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