Why has wild polio been found in Germany and what does it mean?

Germany has found the wild polio virus in a sewage sample in Hamburg, the first such detection in Europe since 2010.

WHAT IS POLIO?

Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is an infectious disease that terrified parents worldwide for much of the first half of the 20th century. Affecting mainly children under five, it is often asymptomatic but can also cause symptoms like fever and vomiting.

Around one in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, and among those patients, up to 10% die. There is no cure, but it is preventable by vaccination, and case rates globally have reduced by 99% since mass vaccination efforts began in 1988.

WHAT IS WILD POLIO?

There are two forms of polio: wild polio and vaccine-derived or variant polio. Both can cause paralysis and death, but wild polio is rarer a