There is a fresh call for Australia to create a national polio surveillance network as Victoria increases its wastewater testing.
UNICEF Australia’s senior vaccine advisor Chris Maher says the building blocks for a national program are already in place.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Tuesday the state has stepped up wastewater testing for the virus, while NSW will roll out a program as soon as possible.
“It would be great to see this sort of surveillance expanded to every state and territory,” Maher told AAP.
“The network in Australia is not very extensive, but it would be great to see it become more extensive.”
The risk of polio cases in Australia is “very real”, but it’s unlikely the country would experience a big outbreak due to very high vaccine coverage, Maher said.
He previously worked as the senior advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organisation and is on Australia’s national certification committee for polio eradication.
Victorian authorities have increased testing after a man aged in his 20s was paralysed by the virus in New York earlier this year.
Prof. Sutton said the risk of an outbreak in the state remains low but is “not out of the question”.
“We’ve got alternating sampling from the eastern and western wastewater treatment plants,” he told ABC radio.
“We need to make sure that we’re looking very closely because we want to detect this at the earliest possible time if it does come here.”
He said the sensitive surveillance system is capable of detecting tiny amounts of the virus from one individual.
“If it’s detected in wastewater, we would try and work out ... who it’s circulating in and hit (it) very hard with supplementary vaccination.”
The New York case and traces of the virus detected in London should be a reminder to every parent to make sure their child is vaccinated, Sutton added.
“If you’ve got unvaccinated kids ... it’s a risk, and it’s a serious illness; it does cause paralysis in about one in 200.”
