Foreign Office-backed health service warns that the disease which is dangerous especially to children can spread if people are not vaccinated
A warning has been issued over a serious virus which has been detected for the first time in Spain. The Foreign Office-backed Travel Health Pro site flagged up the fact that vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) has been found in Barcelona.
It is the first time it has been detected in the country and was found in September this year, officials said this week. It is an extremely rare for UK travellers to get polio which potentially leads to paralysis.
Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) is a rare but increasing variant of the poliovirus that can spread in communities. It’s a mutated strain of the poliovirus that was originally in the oral poliovirus (OPV) vaccine.
Poliomyelitis is caused by Poliovirus and most infected patients remain asymptomatic. Less than 1 per cent of the exposed susceptible children less than 5 years of age gets paralytic polio. In addition, between 5–10% of children who get infected may die from respiratory failure due to involvement of the respiratory muscles.
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Rotary International, which works to eradicate the virus in the developing world, said the disease transmission pattern is dependent on the socioeconomic situation of the country affected. The most common routes of transmission are the faecal-oral route in developing countries and the oral-to-oral route through saliva and respiratory droplets in developed countries.
It is preventable by vaccination – but can spread among communities where jab rates have been low. The virus is spread from one unvaccinated child to another over a long period of time (often over the course of about 12-18 months), it can mutate and take on a form that can cause paralysis just like the wild poliovirus, according to Rotary International. This mutated poliovirus can then spread in communities, leading to cVDPVs.
Travel Health Pro says: “The virus is transmitted through food or water contaminated by infected human faeces or by direct contact with an infectious person. Polio is extremely rare in UK travellers with the last imported case occurring in 1993. Those at increased risk include travellers visiting friends and relatives, those in direct contact with an infected person, long-stay travellers, and those visiting areas of poor sanitation.
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“In 1988 polio commonly occurred in more than 125 countries on five continents, with more than 1,000 children paralysed every day. Since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, worldwide rates of polio have been reduced by more than 99 percent. The number of countries where polio commonly occurs has declined from 125 to two: Afghanistan and Pakistan. The rest of the world remains at risk of polio importation, with a number countries still reporting imported cases of polio.
“Most individuals (about 95 percent) who acquire polio do not develop symptoms. When they do occur symptoms may range from a mild illness with fever, to symptoms of meningitis (inflammation of the lining of the brain) or paralysis. Although paralysis occurs in less than one percent of infections it is frequently long lasting.”
