London-Sana
British authorities announced today that the polio virus was detected in several samples of sewage in the capital, London, in the first indication since the eighties that the virus could spread in the country.
Reuters quoted the British Health Insurance Authority as saying in a statement that it urged parents to vaccinate their children after detecting the virus during a routine examination of wastewater, especially children who may have missed doses during the closure due to the Covid 19 pandemic.
Nationwide vaccination rates are above the 90 percent needed to prevent an outbreak, but immunization rates in London among children under the age of 12 have fallen below that in recent years.
The last case of polio in Britain was in 1984.
In the past, the disease caused the death or paralysis of thousands of children annually around the world, and so far there is no cure for it, but thanks to vaccination, the world is on the cusp of eliminating it.
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