Polio

[maeveiscurious]

Sad to read Polio is on the rise. My DM remembers it passing through through the village in the 1950s. One boy died on an iron lung and many children were sick.

Vaccination is dropping off in London, I wonder why?

There's misinformation on here-

this IS a problem.

What's been found in the sewage is evidence of polio circulating in the population.

It's not the virus shed from a vaccination, it's a variant of it, so it's therefore spread.

Most people will only experience it as a cold, so no harm done if we stop it now. Significant harm if numbers increase due to poor vaccine take up.

@Worldgonecrazy @Scaevola @DogsAndGin

that ^^ post was for you.

Especially @Worldgonecrazy - get your DD vaccinated, especially if you are in london.

I read DM article on this pointing to issue being young teenagers not getting booster at Y9.
I'm based in Ireland vaccine schedule for Polio here is 2,4,6 months & at 5 year old.
So raises the question why is the booster at 14yo recommend in one country not another.

@853ax the booster IS recommended across the UK.

Usually teens receive their diphtheria/tetanus/polio booster in year 9, along with the MeningitisACWY vaccine. One in each arm, given at school by the School Immunisation Teams.

However due to the pandemic a lot of teens missed it, either because the vaccination teams weren’t visiting schools as planned, or because when they did visit a lot of children were off with Covid. Many SIT are doing catch-ups but there are still lots of young people who have missed it.

They should be able to get it via their GP surgery if they have left school. If still in education they wait until the teams are back in school and “mopped up”.

It doesn't appear to be just teens though, there are big parts of London where the intake is under 50%. Surely that can't be just teens not getting their booster?

@Samarie123 Google pictures of acute cases of measles. Google statistics of malaria deaths. Google statistics of tb infection. Google pictures of what smallpox looked like before it was eradicated by vaccine use. Google deliberate misinformation about vaccines and educate yourself.

Guardian article

"The London samples detected since February raised the alarm because they were related to one another and contained mutations that suggested the virus was evolving as it spreads from person to person."

It's not the presence of the vaccine-derived virus in itself that's the concern. It's the fact that it's showing signs of person to person transmission. Like with covid, monkeypox and all the other emerging diseases transmission within the community is a big step that can lead to problems.

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat no I imagine in areas where there is such low uptake other factors are at play.

There are drives to identify the factor in those areas I believe. Education, increased access, multilingual information, targeted ad campaigns, leafleting, increased HV involvement etc.

I hope they are doing all that.

it just feels very backwards, having diseases we didn’t have to worry about because of successful vaccination programmes, coming back.

there is also quite a fair bit of TB going round.

such a shame.

I had the MMR jab in my 40s because I'm too old to have been offered it routinely as a child

You can absolutely ask your GP to give you vaccines you've missed.

I also had the MMR and BCG in my late 30s (I was too old for the MMR when it was introduced and I had 'mysteriously missed' the BCG at school), as I was travelling to and working in areas where measles and TB were endemic and they were recommended.

Do tell us about people injured by the polio vaccine.

I await your descriptions with interest.

Is this the vaccine they have a booster for in yr9? My ds was off school ill and missed it so I need to take him to the GP. I remember a teacher at school having physical handicaps because of having polio as a girl and getting up and explaining in assembly why she walked with a limp and her face was drooping on one side as the children were always asking her what was wrong with her.
I was only about 6 years old but I remember feeling sad that she had to explain to us - she was a lovely teacher.

I thought the reason why the vaccination did not occur was due to reschedule because of covid and not because the parents did not want them.

@Samarie123 isn't being very forthcoming.

Global WHO Data as at 21 June 2922

16 wild polio cases worldwide over the previous 12 months, latest case reported 27 May 2022.

622 cases of vaccine shed polio virus cases, latest reported case 24 April 2022.

No cases of polio in the U.K. since 1984, even with the increase in global travel. The last case of polio in Europe was 1998.

im guessing all those who think I’m a terrible mother for not getting DD vaccinated against polio have had their kids vaccinated against TB? Cases of TB do occur within the U.K. each year (1033 reported in first quarter of 2022) so if you’re worried about polio, surely TB should be of greater concern? It’s a much greater risk than polio. I’m not relying on ‘here immunity’ to avoid polio anymore than I’m relying on the fact there have been no cases for decades.

If people learned to read past the ‘polio is back’ headlines then they would know there is fuck all to be scared of from wild polio unless they are about to travel to the poorer areas of Afghanistan or Pakistan.

A fortnight ago the media was frothing about monkey pox, this week it’s polio.

@Worldgonecrazy have you read the paper properly?
I'm not being snarky, but do you realise wild polio is in a community in London, we just haven't worked out where?

The evidence in the sewage is that some people in London have polio. They haven't been to the hospital or GP, they haven't been diagnosed, but they are there, with polio. It's not a huge problem for most of us because we are vaccinated. It could be a problem for people who aren't.

I'm not arguing with your choices around vaccines, just making sure that you are basing them on the current situation, not the situation last year.

Aid the vaccination covered under the vaccines babies get at 8/12/26 weeks, I want to ensure my kids are vaccinated, but don't know which notes to look out for in their Red books.

@mommydragonn babies in the UK are vaccinated at 8, 12 and 16 weeks with a polio containing vaccine, as well as a booster at 3 years 4 months.

In the red book it will be recorded at those ages, and called either Infanrix-Hib or Infanrix Hexa for the baby vaccines, and Repevax or Boostrix-IPV (depending how old they are).

TB vaccination is also not offered routinely in all areas now, which I think is a mistake.

Just got back from London and the first thing I did was check baby DS's vaccine book as we're not from the UK and I'm not sure if our vaccine schedule is different. So thankful that he's had two polio vaccines already. Yes the risk is low but the risk of any harm from the vaccine is so much lower, it'd be mad not to vaccinate imo.

I do think some of this "low uptake" is probably due to covid rather than parents not wanting to vaccinate their children. Like that article that came out about how screen time had increased massively for children during the pandemic. No shit! Everything was shut!

My uncle died of polio at the age of 3, in 1950.

My cousin lives with disabilities caused by his mother catching rubella in pregnancy.

I despise all anti vaxxers. The lies and misinformation which they spout and promulgate cause deaths, and we are probably about to reap more of the rewards of their idiocy.

www.gov.uk/government/news/poliovirus-detected-in-sewage-from-north-and-east-london

Recommended vaccs and ages (UK)

www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-complete-routine-immunisation-schedule/the-complete-routine-immunisation-schedule-from-february-2022