2022 Polio

[Ambergris]

National emergency has been declared in the UK, or maybe just in England, after they found evidence of community transmission of poliovirus for the first time.  Remember that of every four kids catching and passing around polio, only one at most will show symptoms.  So they test wastewater for it.

 

They found vaccine-derived poliovirus in London in February 2022.  At first, this was not considered unusual -- typically they pick up a handful of these each year.  People who get the oral polio vaccine (in another country, as the UK doesn't use this) can shed the weakened live virus used in the vaccine for several weeks.

 

What raised alarms was that the samples kept showing up for months on end and were related to one another while containing mutations that suggested the virus was evolving as it  spread from person to person. They hope the virus is confined to a single household or an extended family, but they don't know.

 

Polio is spread mainly through lack of handwashing after using the bathroom, but can also be spread by coughs and sneezes.

[Ambergris]

The first time in this post-vaccine era.

[Jeepers]

I heard a blurb about it on the car radio this morning. This one really scares me. I guess mostly because of the crippling aftereffects. 

[Mother]

This is concerning to me more because I’m wondering how many other viruses will be making an appearance and why now.  We can talk conspiracy theories but are we sure there isn’t more going on with nature.  Man has certainly not lived in harmony with Mother Earth. Are we paying the price?  

[Ambergris]

In 2016, only 37 polio cases were recorded, all in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Nigeria.  Of the three serotypes of wild poliovirus, type 2 was certified as eradicated in 2015 and type 3 was certified as eradicated in 2019.  Only type 1 was left, and only in those two places.  People lost interest, programs lost funding, and vaccination got less common.  Here's the problem: people who get live virus vaccines become very slightly contagious until the vaccination takes effect, so they need to be surrounded by vaccinated people.  When they are surrounded by people who don't have any immunity, the virus shedding from the vaccination results in outbreaks (cVDPV outbreaks, which come in type 1 and type 2).  This was happening in Congo, Syria, Somalia, Laos.  Then came COVID.  From 2019 to 2020, more than 1000 cases were reported.  In 2020, four countries reported cVDPV type 1 outbreaks, 26 countries reported type 2 cVDPV2 outbreaks, and two countries reported outbreaks of both); 13 of these countries reported new outbreaks later.  In 2021, 672 vaccine type new cases were reported in 21 countries. 

 

 During January 2020–April 2022, a total of 1,856 cVDPV cases were identified in 33 countries.