I survived polio, let’s ensure that no children in the UK or elsewhere face this threat ever again
From our UK edition
I contracted polio as an 11-month-old baby living in Coventry. The disease left me with a one-inch length difference between my left and right legs, and very restricted movement in my left foot. I was relatively fortunate as others were more severely paralysed, some relying on iron lungs to breathe at all. Three years after I contracted the disease, a vaccine was introduced that lifted the fear of parents that their children would face the same risks. Cases quickly fell away and the last natural polio infection in the UK happened in 1984. By the time I was old enough to have grandchildren, I did not expect them to be at risk from this life-threatening disease. So the recent discovery of poliovirus in London wastewater came as an alarming shock to me.
