Poliovirus has been detected in the UK and the USA: Here's what we know so far

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) this week announced it had worryingly found 116 polio viruses across 19 sewage samples in London.

The UK had declared a "national incident" back in June after it found traces of the virus in its East London sewage plants.

Since then, a polio case has been identified in New York, prompting the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's Dr Jose Romero to tell CNN that there may be "several hundred cases in the community circulating".

No cases have been identified in the UK, but health officials will be trying to get ahead of the virus by inviting children under 10 to come forward for boosters.

The UK continues to boast a 95 per cent vaccination rate against the poliovirus and officials say they are confident the latest scare will not lead to an outbreak of the virus.

Speaking with ACM in June, infectious diseases expert at the Australian National University, Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake, said the latest detections should not cause too much alarm worldwide.

"If you look at the UK Health Security Agencies announcements, probably every year they get one to three cases or situations where they find polio in the sewage every year," Professor Senanayake said.

"But they are unrelated genetically. So that does happen.

"But what they're seeing now in the UK is between February and June, a large number of cases in an area which is a population of about 4 million people where the polio virus they've identified is genetically related."