Independent UK committee recommends polio booster dose for children under nine

ISTANBUL

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced on Wednesday that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) advised “that a booster dose of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) be offered to all children between ages one and nine” years “in all London boroughs.”

In a statement, the agency reported that the committee issued its advice “following the discovery of poliovirus, derived from type 2 vaccine, in sewage from North and East London” and noted that the booster dose “will ensure a high level of protection against paralysis and will help reduce further spread of the virus.”

The agency stated that, “at the national level, the overall risk of paralytic polio is considered low because most people are protected against” the disease “through vaccination.”

The UKHSA explained that the program will begin to be implemented in “affected areas, where poliovirus has been detected and vaccination rates are low”, and that it will continue “rapidly in all counties” of the country.

The agency pointed out that “the booster dose will be included in the childhood vaccination campaign” of the National Health Service (NHS) “in London, where the rate of childhood vaccination is lower than in the rest of the country.”

In this sense, the agency stressed the importance that “all children between one and nine years of age, even if they are up to date with their vaccinations, accept this vaccine when it is offered to them to further strengthen their protection against poliovirus”.

Following findings earlier this year of poliovirus type 2 (PV2), collected from sewage treatment plants in the London Borough of Beckton, previous sampling by the UKHSA and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) of the United Kingdom identified at least one positive sample of the poliovirus, currently present in parts of the following municipalities: Barnet, Brent, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest.

Sampling also detected virus at lower concentrations and frequencies in areas adjacent to the Beckton catchment, to the south, immediately below the River Thames, and to the east of Beckton. However, it is unclear whether the virus has become established in these areas or whether the detections are due to people from the affected area visiting these neighboring areas.

The level of poliovirus found and the great genetic diversity among the PV2 isolates suggest that there is a certain level of transmission of the virus in these municipalities that could spread to adjacent areas. This suggests that “transmission has gone beyond a close network of a few individuals,” according to the UKHSA.

In total, 116 PV2 isolates have been identified in 19 sewage samples collected in London between February 8 and July 5 this year, but most are vaccine viruses and “only a few have mutations sufficient to be classified.” as vaccinal poliovirus (VDPV2),” the UKHSA said.

The agency warned that “VDPV2 is of more concern, as it behaves more like naturally occurring ‘wild’ polio and can, on rare occasions, cause paralysis in unvaccinated people.”

Likewise, the UKHSA said that “it is working closely with the health agencies of New York and Israel, as well as the World Health Organization, to investigate the links between the poliovirus detected in London and the recent incidents of polio in these two countries”.

The Anadolu Agency website contains only a part of the news stories offered to subscribers on the AA News Broadcast System (HAS), and in a summarized form.


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