Polio detected at Melbourne sewage plant

Testing of a Melbourne sewage plant has found traces of the disease polio, despite there being no locally acquired case in almost 50 years.

Trace amounts of the potentially fatal polio disease have been detected at a Melbourne sewage plant, but residents are being told they shouldn't be alarmed.

Testing of pre-treated sewage at Werribee's Western Treatment Plant revealed a minuscule concentration of the virus, but the Department of Health and Human Services says it doesn't mean an individual is afflicted or putting others at risk.

"It is likely to have come from a person who received (the) live vaccine in another country and has continued to excrete it since arriving in Victoria," the state's acting chief health officer Brett Sutton said on Friday.