Hundreds of former polio patients in the borough may be suffering in silence unaware of the late lethal punch of the virus, a Carshalton mother has warned.

Jennie Pocock, now joint secretary of a Sutton support group advising on the late effects of polio, was first diagnosed with poliomyelitis when she was just four years old.

The virus, which attacks the central nervous system and swept Britain in the 1950s, left her feverish and unable to walk for close to two years. Now 48 years on, it has again reared its head.

"I have curvature of the spine," she said. "A lot of people who have had polio may have had it mildly, but can still be affected by post-polio syndrome.

"They are able to walk and then suddenly they are in a wheelchair because debilitation has set in. Some people think they are just getting old but it's not necessarily that."

"There were so many epidemics in the 1940s and 1950s, there could be no end of people in the borough with it. When we collect in Wallington High Street, you find out virtually every family seems to have been touched by it in some way."

The Sutton, Merton and District Branch of the British Polio Fellowship currently has around 40 active members, and another 60 or so on the branch list. But co-ordinators are urging anyone who had the virus in the past or knows of someone who had it, to get in touch.

The group is inviting new members to join its Christmas party at Highfield Hall in Carshalton Road between 5.30pm and 8.30pm on Saturday, December 8. Call Jennie Pocock on 020 8395 6547.

November 23, 2001 12:01