WHEN YOU THINK of polio, you probably think of a long-gone virus, one which made people decades ago incredibly ill and led to paralysis for some children globally.

Thanks to vaccination, polio has been eradicated in many countries. But in the past year, the virus that causes polio has been found in a concerning number of sewage samples in London, New York and Jerusalem.

Officials in the US believe there may be hundreds of cases and that the disease is silently spreading through communities, with low rates of vaccination in particular areas possibly driving transmission.

Here in Ireland, polio vaccine uptake has been declining in recent years – in 2021 uptake was 87% – but so far there haven’t been any similar discoveries in our wastewater, and there are no cases of polio having been reported.

To talk us through what the findings in these three countries mean, and how worried we should be, Michelle Hennessy speaks this week to Dr Kathleen O’Reilly, epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Listen to The Explainer

https://soundcloud.com/the-explainer-podcast/why-has-polio-reappeared-in-some-major-cities/s-VKX9vGsSKlj?si=46bd8a5c8216474a8d8691b66f97b8fd&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

This episode was put together by presenter Michelle Hennessy, producers Aoife Barry and Nicky Ryan.