A feared disease which paralysed tens of thousands of children: Polio’s history laid bare

You could be forgiven for thinking polio was a disease resigned to history.

The paralysis-causing disease was officially eradicated in the UK in 2003 and the last domestic outbreak was in the 1970s.

But dwindling vaccination rates — in part due to complacency — appear to have allowed polio to creep back in decades later.

The archaic disease has existed as long as human civilisation, with the earliest records dating back to ancient Egypt.

But as hygiene standards improved in richer nations…