Polio alert in Europe

An anomalous number of poliovirus detections have occurred in several European countries in recent months, as reported by Pamela Rendi-Wagner, Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and Hans Kluge, Regional Director of WHO Europe, in an editorial published in Eurosurveillance. Despite Europe being declared polio-free in 2002 following decades-long vaccination campaigns, poliovirus continues to be imported from areas where the disease is still present. From 2015 to 2022, at least one European country reported the presence of pathogenic poliovirus annually. In 2024, vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 was detected in wastewater systems in 14 cities across five European countries: Spain, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Finland. Genetic analysis has revealed a relationship between these viruses and a strain first identified in Nigeria in 2020, which has since spread to 21 African countries, causing outbreaks in 15 of them. Although the vaccination coverage rates are satisfactory in the five affected countries, there are disparities among certain communities, where protection is inadequate, thus creating vulnerable population pockets where the virus can spread rapidly. According to WHO/ECDC, preventing the spread of polio requires the implementation of preventive measures, including vaccination, health surveillance, and public awareness.