Renewed push for polio-vaccine uptake amid High Holy Day gatherings

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) says no cases have been detected in the UK.

Across the London boroughs of Barnet, Camden and Haringey, between 80 and 89 per cent of children are vaccinated against polio before their first birthday. However in Hackney, home to Europe's largest strictly Orthodox Jewish community, rates are much lower.

On Wednesday the London Jewish Health Partnership and NHS health officials co-hosted an online workshop that discussed the move to encourage vaccine-uptake in Jewish communities.

Hackney Council have described an “open” response by the community to the campaign, stating: “We have been putting on community clinics at our Spring Hill and Stamford Hill practices over the last 3 Sundays, two of the practices with large numbers of Orthodox Jewish children, and have done over 100 vaccinations on each of the 3 Sundays. 

“Across the weekend of September 17 to 18, 190 vaccinations were done at the Spring Hill clinic and the view from the clinicians was that the majority were from the Orthodox community. 

“The most popular vaccine delivered in these clinics was the '5 in 1', which is used for those who are completely unvaccinated, rather than the polio booster alone.

"I expect we will start to see this dip slightly over the next couple of weeks, due to Rosh Hashanah, and the Jewish holidays.  

“We are monitoring the data weekly and while we don't have data based on religion, I suspect the overall levels of coverage, combined with the previous factors, indicate an openness to the polio vaccination by the community.”

In a letter distributed to the Jewish community through Partnerships for Jewish Schools and Chinuch UK among other agencies, families are encouraged visit NHS.uk/polio-sites to track down their local vaccination centres and pharmacies providing vaccination.

The letter, co-signed by public health directors for Barnet, Hackney and Haringey councils among others, also urges people to book an appointment “as soon as possible if you are contacted by your GP.”

Ben Kasstan, a medical anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine stressed: "We don't want any child to go unprotected".

Earlier this year, poliovirus was detected at the Beckton sewage treatment, which serves north London. Further samples taken upstream suggested that transmission spread beyond a handful of individuals.

A minority of the samples had the mutations necessary to categorise them as vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV2).

VDPV2 can result in paralysis in those who have not been innoculated against it.

In August the JC reported that a campaign had been launched to boost polio-vaccination rates among the strictly-Orthodox London community in London’s Stamford Hill neighbourhood.

The virus, which can cause paralysis and death, spreads through faeces. It was eradicated in Europe in 2003, but this July a case was diagnosed in Rockland County — the county with the highest Jewish population per capita in the US.

The victim, who had not been vaccinated against polio, suffered paralysis after contracting the disease.