“We were one step away from polio eradication, but recent cases are a wake-up call. Those who have not or have not vaccinated their children should do so. Ignorance, bad faith and misinformation risk setting us back 70 years,” really amazing “. He writes it on Facebook Matteo Bassettidirector of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa, commenting on the alarm of WHO, the World Health Organization for recent cases of polio in New York, United Kingdom and Israel, genetically linked to each other.
Polio is a serious infectious disease affecting the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor neurons of the spinal cord. In Italy, vaccination became mandatory in 1966, the vaccine is administered in children and the vaccination coverage monitored by the Higher Institute of Health and updated to the summer of 2021 is 94%, higher than the European average. The last case notified in our country dates back to 1982.
The alarm, in the United Kingdom as in the United States, was triggered after higher than normal traces of the polio virus, capable of causing the disease of the same name, were found in the sewer system in the city of London. The virus was also found in New York, where a man was paralyzed in Rockland County, in the north of the city. The local authorities and then the WHO have therefore invited to vaccinate those who are discovered as soon as possible. The NHS, the British health system, has already launched a polio vaccination campaign offering the first dose or booster to children between 1 and 9 years of age, starting with those residing in areas where vaccination coverage rates are particularly low. .
And now also in Italy, albeit in the absence of cases of polio, experts like Bassetti invite those who, despite the obligation, have not been vaccinated or have not vaccinated their children to run for cover.