I contracted polio as an 11-month-old baby living in Coventry.By the time I was old enough to have grandchildren, I did not expect them to be at risk from this life-threatening disease. So the recent discovery of poliovirus in London wastewater came as an alarming shock to me. Although the wastewater samples show the virus has been circulating in the community, fortunately there have not been any cases of paralysis – as there have sadly been this year in the US and Israel, two other countries that thought they had seen the back of polio decades ago.
All children under nine in London are now being offered a dose of the vaccine either to boost their existing protection or catch up on their routine vaccinations. That should quickly see off the risk in the UK, provided parents take this up in sufficient numbers.
But this year’s polio scare has reinforced what we’ve also learnt so painfully with Covid-19: that infectious diseases don’t respect borders, and that tackling health risks in the rest of the world matters to us here in Britain.
The vaccine that was introduced 60 years ago for my younger neighbours in Coventry has gone on to be used around the world in a huge collective effort to end the risk of polio once and for all. Wild poliovirus is endemic in only two countries in the world: Pakistan and Afghanistan. If we can protect children in those places, and keep up vaccination rates elsewhere, we can finally break the cycle of transmission for good and ensure that no child in the UK or elsewhere faces this threat again.
That global effort to eradicate polio has been a partnership of many organisations and countries, not least the committed support of many ordinary Rotary International members here in the UK. Our government has also historically been an important part of the coalition, recognising that it’s right to fund a programme that saves the lives of children everywhere, while also keeping us safe at home. At the World Health Summit in Berlin last month, governments from around the world committed funding to support what is hopefully the last stage in our efforts to defeat this disease for good, but the British government was sadly not among them, reflecting broader cutbacks in support for global health efforts.
Finding traces of polio in north London reminds us that as long as polio exists anywhere, it’s a danger everywhere. Without a full commitment to eradication, we’re putting the health of children in the UK and all over the world at risk. The UK can and should be at the forefront of disease eradication and I hope it can soon find its way back to that proud tradition of support for global health.
There was a time when my family worried about whether I would ever walk. Although I missed out on the polio vaccine, I did have access to an amazing surgeon who operated on my foot, enabling me not only to walk, but to dance, which I continue to do to this day. It would be heartbreaking if we let more children – whether in London or Pakistan or Afghanistan – have their dreams held back by our failure to get them the vaccines they need.