World Polio Day: UK withdrawal from polio eradication funding risks reversing decades of progress
25th October 2026
The UK’s decision to end direct funding for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) risks weakening efforts to eliminate polio worldwide, doctors from Healthy World, Secure Britain warn on World Polio Day.
Falling vaccination rates and a growing number of detections of the virus in sewers have raised the risk of an outbreak to levels not seen since the last century, while the withdrawal of funding for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) threatens to allow the virus to rebound around the world just as the campaign is entering its final years.
This combination threatens lives abroad and could increase risks in Britain. Historical evidence also suggests that the health and economic consequences of a renewed outbreak could far outweigh the savings from withdrawing the UK’s £20 million annual contribution to the GPEI.
An Office of Health Economics (OHE) report from 1963, during the last epidemic in this country, calculated that treating the last epidemic cost £1.69 million a year, the equivalent to about £44 million today.
The report put the lifelong loss of earnings among survivors at a further £4.34 million, or approximately £113 million in today’s money. Together, the treatment and economic costs would amount to £157 million.
Dr Hareen De Silva, a GP who was awarded the King’s Humanitarian Medal for his work with UK-Med in Gaza, which included supporting a polio vaccination campaign, said: “Working to combat polio in Gaza after its first outbreak in nearly a quarter of a century brought home to me how vital vaccination is to protecting children from a disease that can cause lifelong paralysis or even death.
“Withdrawing support for polio eradication risks undoing decades of progress and leaving families facing a preventable disease. As long as polio exists anywhere, it remains a threat everywhere.”
The UK’s withdrawal comes as evidence mounts that Britain’s defences against the disease are weakening. Poliovirus has been detected in London wastewater twice this year, most recently in March. It was the tenth detection since 2024.
Uptake of the six-in-one vaccine, which protects babies against polio and five other serious diseases, fell to 90.8 per cent among one-year-olds in the year to March 2026. Almost one in five children starting school had also missed their preschool polio booster.
Polio mainly affects children under five. Most infections cause no symptoms, while some sufferers develop a flu-like illness.
In rare cases, the virus attacks the brain and nerves, causing muscle weakness or paralysis within hours. Paralysis of the muscles used for breathing can be fatal, and there is no specific treatment.
Some people who previously developed paralytic polio can experience post-polio syndrome decades later, causing new muscle weakness, fatigue, and physical decline.
About 50,000 people in Britain are still living with the effects of the outbreaks of the last century. Those affected have included Mary Berry, the cook and television presenter, the actress Mia Farrow and the late singer-songwriter Ian Dury.
Anne Wafula Strike MBE, Team GB Paralympian and polio survivor, said: “Having experienced challenges accessing the polio vaccine as a child, I navigate its lifelong effects every day. I urge families in the UK to ensure their children are fully vaccinated, both for their own protection and to prevent the virus from returning here. Until polio is completely eradicated worldwide, it remains a global threat just a plane ride away. We have the power to prevent this disease. Every child deserves that safety.”
Kripen Dhrona, Chief Executive Officer at the British polio Fellowship, said: “Every day the British Polio Fellowship sees that polio is not a disease of the past.
“Thousands in the UK still live with its lifelong effects, such as post-polio syndrome, increasing fatigue, muscle weakness and pain. Behind every statistic is a person and a family whose lives have changed forever.
“We owe it to them to be heard, and to make sure no one else suffers polio’s consequences in the future.”
Graham Cookson, Chief Executive of the Office of Health Economics, said: “Our 1963 study of Britain’s last polio epidemic shows its consequences extended well beyond the devastating human toll, with substantial costs for treatment, long term care and lost economic potential.
“While a future outbreak is unlikely to reach the scale seen then, healthcare is far more complex and expensive than it was 60 years ago. A renewed outbreak risks carrying an economic cost greater than the savings made by withdrawing support for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.”
Britain’s last community outbreak was in the 1970s. The last case contracted in the UK was recorded in 1984 and the last imported case in 1993. The country was officially declared polio-free in 2003.
The UK has contributed about £1.4 billion to the eradication programme since 1995. International vaccination efforts have reduced polio cases by more than 99 per cent but ending support before the final deadlines risks allowing the virus to regain ground abroad and return to Britain.
The decision comes against a backdrop of wider reductions in Britain’s overseas aid budget. UK aid spending is set to fall from 0.5% of gross national income (GNI) to 0.3% by 2027/28, reducing the projected annual aid budget to approximately £9.2 billion, compared with £15.4 billion had spending remained at 0.5%.
The Government has also confirmed reductions in funding for major global health programmes, including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In its own assessment of the aid cuts, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office acknowledged that the decision not to provide further funding to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative could increase the risk of disease outbreaks.
The Healthy World, Secure Britain campaign warns that cuts to global health funding risk undermining efforts to prevent infectious diseases at source, increasing the likelihood of outbreaks spreading internationally and placing additional avoidable pressure on the NHS.
The greatest consequences of these cuts will be felt in low- and middle-income countries, where infectious diseases already cause disproportionate suffering, disability, and death, as well as wider economic and social disruption. But in an interconnected world, weakening disease prevention and vaccination programmes abroad also carries consequences for health security in Britain.
Press release provided by: BBPartners