Polio was once a much-feared disease that caused paralysis and disability. While it’s now been eradicated in the UK, polio survivors are finding that the virus can continue to wreak havoc years after the initial infection

Ann Bermingham from Lepton believes she was one of the last people in England to catch polio.

Now 59, she was just nine months old when doctors confirmed she had been affected by the virus that attacks brain and nerve cells and claimed thousands of victims during epidemics of the 1940s and 50s. The disease left her with permanent weakness in her right leg, but could she never imagined that one day polio would return with a range of new and further debilitating conditions.

Today Ann is one 120,000 people that the British Polio Fellowship estimates are living with Post Polio Syndrome (PPS). The syndrome, which NHS Choices describes as ‘a poorly understood condition’, can cause muscle weakness, fatigue, breathing problems and pain in people who have had polio.

Ann Bermingham, Huddersfield polio patient, with one of her companion dogs

Because the condition arises between 15 and 40 years after the initial infection it has become more common in recent years, as members of the last generation affected by polio enter their late 50s and 60s. Vaccination programmes, introduced in the 1960s, greatly reduced the number of cases (around 6,300 people were affected in 1955 alone) and there hasn’t been a case of polio caught in the UK for more than 20 years.

As Ann says: “Post polio is happening to people in their late 50s. They are having weakness and tiredness and don’t know what’s wrong with them. They are going to the doctor again and again and being told they’re all right. Doctors put disabilities down to the original polio infection; even in the medical profession there is little understanding of polio or post polio. When I broke my ‘polio leg’ two years ago I found that even in hospital I couldn’t get through to them why I’m constantly tired and my leg constantly lets me down.”

She is a member of the British Polio Fellowship’s Wakefield Branch (the Huddersfield branch closed due to lack of members) and meets regularly with other polio sufferers, many of whom are experiencing post polio symptoms. She said: “My friends are all in wheelchairs or walk with sticks. Each year it gets harder and harder for us. I feel like I’m getting slower and slower.”

Polio sufferer Ann Bermingham, of Ings Way West, Lepton.

The polio virus may cause a flu-like illness or no symptoms at all Only a tiny percentage of infected people go on to develop nerve damage and varying degrees of paralysis, from mild leg weakness to full paralysis. It’s not known whether PPS affects those who were unaware that they had been exposed to the polio virus. In the past, seriously affected patients spent months or even years in an iron lung, which took over their breathing. In the 1960s most schoolchildren would be familiar with the sight of a fellow pupil wearing leg calipers.

In many ways, Ann was fortunate that only her legs were affected. But she was nine-years-old before she could walk and then only managed with the use of a caliper. She says if it hadn’t been for her mother’s determination to treat her like a ‘normal’ child she might have ended up a wheelchair. She explained: “I didn’t get mollycoddled at all. I was next to eldest of seven and we all had our jobs. Mine was to see to the paper for the fire and empty the ashtrays. I had jobs even when I couldn’t walk. It was the best thing my mum could have done; she didn’t give up on me.”

Ann was in her 30s when she started to notice additional symptoms, such as severe back ache and weakness in her left (non polio) leg. Eventually the increased mobility problems meant that she had to give up work. She had been a mender in the textile industry, a check-out operator and, later on, a sewing machinist at disability employer Remploy in Huddersfield. “We used to make chemical warfare body bags and donkey jackets, but I found I just couldn’t do it any more,” says Ann. “My leg and back were so tired and ached.”

Polio sufferer Ann Bermingham, of Ings Way West, Lepton.

Today, Ann receives a Disability Living Allowance, which enables her to get out and about. Extended family, her daughter Donna Oldfield and brother Peter Joyce are regular carers. She is dreading the inevitable re-assessment that she will have to undergo following the Government’s introduction of the Personal Independence Payment and explained: “You would be surprised at the amount of people who were on DLA benefits, who have had to go for new medicals and been turned down for PIP. The assessors don’t understand polio or post polio.

“I couldn’t manage without my car; I’m frightened of losing my independence. Even a short walk exhausts me. The furthest I go now is out to meet my polio fellowship friends once a month for lunch. Without a car none of us would be able to function.”

As well as suffering the effects of polio and Post Post Syndrome, Ann has also had two heart attacks and kidney failure. She now walks with the aid of a stick and says only the company of her two little Yorkiepoo dogs, Mimi and Missy give her a reason to go outside. “They keep me going,” she added.

Polio fact file:

  • Polio was the most feared and dreaded disease in the first half of the 20th century. In 1947 in the UK it killed 688 people and affected a total of 7,650. There were other major outbreaks in 1950 and 1955.
  • By 1990 cases of polio in the UK were down to single figures.
  • All children today are offered routine polio vaccinations in infancy and boosters later in childhood.
  • There is no cure for the condition.
  • Areas declared polio-free by the World Health Organization (WHO) include Europe, the Americas, the western Pacific region and, most recently, southeast Asia.
  • But polio is still a significant problem in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan, and there’s a potential risk of infection in other parts of Africa and some Middle Eastern countries.
  • There was an increase in world-wide cases in 2014 so travellers are advised to check their vaccination status and opt for a further booster if it is 10 years or more since their last.
  • The British Polio Fellowship says the chances of developing Post Polio Syndrome are as high as 80% among those who have had the disease. However, a landmark ruling at an Employment Appeal Tribunal means that employers cannot discriminate against people with polio damage on the grounds that they might go on to develop PPS.