An appeal has been made for Nottingham parents to make sure their children are fully vaccinated against polio as the city's sewage network is checked for the disease. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced that Nottingham was one of the areas where its polio sewage surveillance programme would be extended, and the city's public health team believe that its low vaccination rate is one of the primary reasons why it has been chosen.
It comes after poliovirus was first found in samples in London. Despite no cases of polio being reported in the country, people are still being urged to take precautions.
Lucy Hubber, the director of public health at Nottingham City Council, said: "It's quite hard to understand that what we've found in London is samples of polio within the waste water, but we haven't yet had any cases. We know that in some countries abroad they still use the live poliovirus in their vaccines.
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"People with links to those countries are then in the UK and that's why a certain level of polio is expected in the sewage. But what has been found in London now is at a higher level than would be expected, so there may have now been some spread and that's why the surveillance has been extended.
"I suspect that our low vaccine rate is probably the main reason why Nottingham has been chosen. We were also part of the waste water testing programme for coronavirus and, so that, alongside our low vaccine rates, means that Nottingham is a very useful place for this to be done."
The polio vaccine is given to babies at eight, 12 and 16 weeks old, before being given again at three years old and 14. The NHS says that children need all five doses for maximum protection and that appointments can easily be booked through a GP.
Ms Hubber said: "We would ideally like to see 95 percent of the population vaccinated and we're currently at less than 90 percent across all the age groups who we want to see protected. The message is therefore to make sure that your child is fully protected and, if you think they may have missed a vaccine, please do book an appointment.
"It's important to say that although the live virus is used in vaccines abroad, we do not do that in this country. It is a dead vaccine that we use and it cannot give you polio."
The UKHSA says that its sewage sampling strategy will continue to be reviewed and adapted as new evidence emerges. Ms Hubber said that it could be some time before we hear any results from the checks in Nottingham.
She added: "I suspect that they will be testing for quite a long time because what they will want to do first is to properly establish what the baseline level of polio is in our waste water. We will also have people with links to countries still using the live virus vaccine shedding that polio into the waste water.
"We do still expect a little baseline with perhaps one or two samples being found anyway so once that has been established, testing will be done to see if it has spread. It will probably be some time before we can say anything about what this testing has shown."
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