This outbreak can be controlled. But until an infectious disease is eradicated everywhere in the world, we are all vulnerable
Covid-19 variants, monkeypox and now polio: you might wonder what else will be thrown at us in 2022. Last week in London, polio was detected in sewage screened by the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), which has been surveilling the disease for decades as part of an international commitment to the World Health Organization.
The latest screening and analysis with metagenomics indicates that this polio strain is derived from the oral polio vaccine (OPV) still used in some parts of the world. Some countries use live, non-infective, non-virulent polio virus for their inoculations, which can evolve to become infectious in some cases. So we now know there has been introduction and then transmission of one of these strains within London – though the exact cases have yet to be identified.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
