London parents - will you be giving your kids under 10 the polio booster?

[Digimoor]

I just got a text with details of the polio booster they are offering
Dependent on age it will be a 6 in 1 or 3 in 1/ 4 in 1 jab with the other childhood vaccines included (eg Diphtheria, Tetanus, Whooping cough etc)

IABU to think my kid is fully vaccinated so why bother?

YABU = I will give my kids the booster
YANBU = I won't

@dandelionthistle MMR is not worth a punt. But then you are a Westerner in a country with free healthcare and a social security system so there is some, even if is decreasing, levels of support.

@Macarena1990 TB isn't a threat to everyone in the UK.

It depends on your family background whether your child(ren) are offered vaccination.

I'm old enough to have an auntie who lived in the UK all her life and contracted polio as a 7 year old in the 1930s. She was partially paralysed and it affected her whole life. I was vaccinated and so were my children.

Fuck me have a little watch of TB videos. I'd have them vaccinated weekly if necessary.

We won't be having it as DD is due her preschool jab (which includes a polio booster). But if that weren't the case, she'd be having the extra booster.

I didn't say it was, in fact I was clear that my own children have had the jab. I said I could understand why some people view it as such, in contrast to polio.

For my mother's generation and above, the MMR diseases were largely a normal experience of childhood; nastiness I'd prefer to avoid, yes, and a risk of complications higher than I'd personally choose my children to chance. But not equivalent to polio.

In inner London boroughs all newborn babies were offered the BCG regardless of ethnicity when my younger 2 were born (they are 7 and 11).

I think if more people had actually seen what polio does, this wouldn't even be a question.

And my children are in one of the ethnic backgrounds considered at risk

I am in a Rotary Club. One of Rotary's main aims since the late 1980s has been the worldwide eradication of polio. We are nearly there, with cases only occurring in 2 countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan so the discovery of the virus in the uk is of great concern. I remember young kids in iron lungs, wearing calipers just disappearing from school and spending years in care. It is horrible. There is also a thing called post polio syndrome which hits polio sufferers later in life, as if they haven't suffered enough. We have virtually forgotten about polio in the UK as we have had no cases for decades, but it is vital we close off the potential for the disease returning. A film was made a few years ago called Breathe about a guy who contracted the disease in Africa and what he had to go through. It is not as grim as it sounds and is worth watching. In the meantime, get your kids vaccinated.

Definitely. They're booked in for it this weekend.

Oh god yes, TB is ghastly. Just ghastly.

As someone who does a lot of family history I can actually spot a family with TB just from the death indexes, because of the distinctive way it works its way through wiping them out. It's truly terrible.

The parents become debilitated and die in their 20s – or 30s latest – orphaning their remaining children who have been getting sick and dying one by one at intervals of 18 months or so.

There might be one survivor from a brood of 5, who lives long enough to grow up, marry, give their spouse and children TB... and the whole cycle repeats.

It's unspeakable to watch even at this distance. I can't imagine what it must have been like to experience close up.

Yes 100%. We got the text today so I’ll be booking in my 4yo

Yes got my text todsy

will def do dd5

i worked for a family whose dad had polio as a child and I wouldn’t want that for my child when no need to risk it

but I give her all vaccinations

I'm really glad to be offered something that will give my children additional protection from an awful disease. Not a difficult choice for me.

My DD only had her pre-school boosters 3 months ago, which included a polio vaccine. Does anyone know if she still needs to have this additional booster?

We are lucky to live in a country where vaccinations are offered against these terrible diseases. You’d think people would jump at the chance to protect their kids.

Children will not be given the booster if they have had their pre-school booster in the past 12 months
www.gov.uk/government/publications/polio-booster-campaign-resources/have-your-polio-vaccine-now-information-for-parents

Thank you @Digimoor

Not too far from London here so possibly on the edges of catchment for the booster. If we had children, they'd be having the jab.

My grandfather had polio as a WW1 era toddler and was incredibly lucky- he survived with a foot twisted into a claw as his only real lasting side effect. I remember looking at it as a child. My parents are also old enough to remember polio being a dangerous risk to children and people disappearing for years and being wheelchair bound or in callipers. M
Why would you take such a dreadful, terrifying risk when the medicine exists to stop it and you're lucky enough to have access to it?

I’m another one who knew someone with post polio syndrome, and I’m only in my early 40s. He caught it in the Middle East as a young man, and by the time he died in his 90s he’d had a lifetime of disability and eventually, great pain. I don’t have kids but I absolutely can’t understand why you wouldn’t get every vaccine possible against this. It’s not only about protecting your own kids, it’s also stopping anyone else’s from having to go through that.

Yep 💯

Out of interest, which London Borough are you in that you've had a text already? I'm in the one where it was first found in sewage and nothing here as yet!

Another one old enough to remember a neighbour’s child taken to hospital with polio. It was every parents nightmare. He was a child whose parents hadn’t taken him to be vaccinated.
I’ve seen mothers queue in 40C heat for hours to make sure their children are vaccinated, they know certain illnesses can cause lifelong disability or death. I had a mum insist I look at her baby’s medical card. Her fifth child, the only one alive.

Please, if it’s offered there’s a reason for it so take it.

@jessycake yep, it's a jab. The old-style oral vaccine is a live vaccine which is how it seems to have got into the sewage in the first place (people vaccinated abroad with that one). In the UK now it's part of the 5-in-1 or 3-in-1 routine jab

I’d just call HV or GP to ask. Then you’ll know you’ve got correct info for your child.