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NEW POLIO FEAR CAMPAIGN TARGETS PARENTS

Writer's picture: Mark PlayneMark Playne

The New UK Polio Fear campaign has ramped up its marketing efforts targeting parents.


This is a copy of one such email being sent to parents.


QUOTE: "...Urgent: Poliovirus Dear Parent / Carer
Poliovirus has been detected in a number of London sewage samples, the advice from UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is to urge anyone who isn’t up to date with their polio vaccines to get immunised.
The combined Tetanus, diphtheria and polio (Td/IPV) booster vaccine is offered to all pupils in Year 9, If your child did not receive their vaccine in the last 2 years, please contact the South Warwickshire school age immunisation team to arrange vaccination.
Kind Regards,
South Warwickshire Immunisation and Vaccination..."

So other than the transparent pharma sales drive, is there a real Polio outbreak, or could there be other factors at play?


As a reminder, this is last week's UK government announcement.


"...Polio found in UK for first time since 1984 as Government declares national incident.


The UK Health Security Agency has declared a national incident after discovering the virus that causes polio in the UK for the first time in nearly 40 years.


There are not yet any confirmed cases but the samples found appear to confirm the first “transmission event” in the UK since 1984, when the last case of polio was detected.


Parents of children who are not up to date with their polio vaccine course are urged to make an appointment with their GP as soon as possible, but the UKHSA says the risk to the wider population is low..."


Samples taken from a sewage treatment works in east London between February and May suggest the virus has spread between a small number of people, possibly in an extended family in the capital...."


This needs repeating:

There are not yet any confirmed cases but the samples appear to confirm the first “transmission event” ...Parents of children who are not up to date with their polio vaccine course are urged to make an appointment with their GP as soon as possible...."




What is vaccine-derived polio? The WHO definition.


Oral polio vaccine (OPV) contains an attenuated (weakened) vaccine-virus, activating an immune response in the body. When a child is immunized with OPV, the weakened vaccine-virus replicates in the intestine for a limited period, thereby developing immunity by building up antibodies.


During this time, the vaccine-virus is also excreted.

In areas of inadequate sanitation, this excreted vaccine-virus can spread in the immediate community (and this can offer protection to other children through ‘passive’ immunization), before eventually dying out.




How could the polio have been found in London's sewerage system?


It is important to understand how these 'polio samples' might have been found. Could children being vaccinated with Polio have shed the Polio virus via faeces as shown in this 2015 paper?


Poliovirus vaccine strains detected in stool specimens of immunodeficient children in South Africa.


STUDY ABSTRACT "...After exposure to the oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), immunocompetent persons excrete poliovirus (PV) vaccine strains for a limited period. In contrast, immunodeficient individuals remain sometimes chronically infected, and in some cases, PV excretion times as long as 10 years have been reported....The aim of this study was to determine the occurrence of OPV (oral poliovirus vaccine) strains in stools of immunodeficient children...These results suggested that immunodeficient patients vaccinated with OPV might excrete potentially pathogenic VDPVs for a prolonged period.


The aim of this study was to determine the occurrence of OPV strains in stools of immunodeficient children from a selected area in South Africa, as a first step toward future research on the prevalence and potential health impact of VDPVs. In a period of 1 year, a total of 164 stool samples of HIV-positive children aged 4 months to 8 years were studied for the excretion of OPV strains.


In addition, 23 stool samples from healthy immunocompetent children were analyzed after receiving their OPV immunization. By applying a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction in combination with a nested PCR, a total of 54 enteroviruses (EVs) were detected in the stool specimens of the immunodeficient children. Using restriction enzyme analysis, 13 PVs were distinguished from 41 nonpolio EVs (NPEVs).


A Sabin-specific RT-triplex PCR confirmed the presence of 7 Sabin PV type 1, 4 Sabin PV type 3, and 2 Sabin PV type 2 isolates. The majority of the NPEV group was made up of 7 coxsackievirus B3 (CBV3), 6 echovirus 11 (ECV11), 5 ECV9, and 3 coxsackievirus A6 (CAV6) isolates.


According to the results, two of the immunodeficient patients (P023 and P140) who had received their last OPV immunization more than 15 months before (vaccinated at 14 weeks of age) tested positive for Sabin PVs types 3 and 1, respectively. A 5-year-old immunodeficient patient (P052) who had received her last OPV immunization more than 42 months before (vaccinated at 18 months of age) tested positive for Sabin PV type 1.


These VDPVs may circulate in the community, resulting in possible infections in the unvaccinated population. Therefore, the information obtained in this study would be essential for strategies aimed at the protection of both immunodeficient as well as immunocompetent individuals against complications of vaccination with OPV."


Read article for free, from open access legal sources, via Unpaywall: https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/2263/2410/1/Pavlov_Polioviruses%282006%29.pdf



RELEVANT PAPERS


Poliovirus vaccine strains in sewage and river water in South Africa



"...Although there are many advantages in using attenuated OPV strains in the campaign to eradicate poliomyelitis, several studies have demonstrated that there are some disadvantages such as (a) excretion by vaccines of OPV-derived polioviruses with genomic modifications known to increase the neurovirulence, (b) appearance of vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP) and other adverse effects in vaccinees, (c) occurrence of persistent infections caused by OPV-derived strains in immunodeficient patients with VAPP, (d) transmission of OPV-derived polioviruses to susceptible individuals which develop VAPP, and (e) detection of OPV-derived polioviruses in the environment, which could be a source of infection for humans in the future. Different studies indicate that it is important to consider the possibility of persistent infections and excretion of OPV-derived polioviruses for long periods by humans, and also the survival in the environment of OPV-derived polioviruses excreted by humans, which could be transmitted and circulate in a non-immune population after stopping poliovirus vaccination.




Vaccine poliovirus shedding and immune response to oral polio vaccine in HIV-infected and -uninfected Zimbabwean infants

Background: With prolonged replication, attenuated polioviruses used in oral polio vaccine (OPV) can mutate into vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) and cause poliomyelitis outbreaks. Individuals with primary humoral immunodeficiencies can become chronically infected with vaccine poliovirus, allowing it to mutate into immunodeficiency-associated VDPV (iVDPV).

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