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August 24, AM ET. Brian Hastings drove two hours from Long Island for a shot. The addition of the U. Goats and Soda How the U.
Polio Outbreak In New York Puts U.S. On List Of Countries Where Virus Circulates, CDC Says
There is no cure or treatment for polio and vaccines are safe and have brought the virus—which only lives in humans—to the brink of polio outbreak new york, though pushing it over the edge has proven tougher than officials hoped. In other words, the outbreak isn’t contained.
– Polio outbreak new york
September 14, at pm. A particular kind of poliovirus is spreading in the United States. The U. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that the country now joins a list of around 30 other countries where circulation of the virus has been identified. The news, announced September 13, comes after the identification in July of a case of paralytic polio in an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County in New York.
This spurred wastewater surveillance in Rockland and the surrounding counties, because people shed poliovirus in their stool. The wastewater samples showed that the virus was spreading in Rockland and neighboring areas. In response, New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency on September 9 to expand access to polio vaccination statewide.
Three of the counties where poliovirus has been detected in wastewater — Rockland, Orange and Sullivan — have polio vaccination rates of only around 60 percent. In rare cases, the virus can cause permanent paralysis, and the disease can turn deadly if that paralysis hits the muscles that control breathing or swallowing.
Anyone unvaccinated is at risk of paralytic polio if they get infected. The new worries about polio in the United States are driven by vaccine-derived versions of the virus spreading in areas with low vaccination. Polio vaccines come as a shot, given in the arm or leg, or a liquid given orally.
These vaccines provide protection against wild poliovirus and vaccine-derived poliovirus. The shot is an inactivated vaccine given as part of routine childhood vaccinations in the United States.
Kids receive a total of four shots. The inactivated vaccine protects against paralysis. The oral vaccine, still used in many countries, is an attenuated vaccine, made with live but weakened poliovirus. This vaccine can help prevent wild poliovirus from being passed along further if a vaccinated person drinks water or eats food that has been contaminated with stool containing the pathogen.
But because these attenuated versions can replicate, the virus can spread from cell to cell and possibly to other people. Which leads us to the next question.
These viruses are related to the oral vaccine. The problem comes when an attenuated virus from the oral vaccine spreads among too many people and regains its ability to cause paralysis, says Adam Lauring, a virologist and infectious diseases physician at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
In a community with low or no vaccination against polio, such vaccine-derived polioviruses can cause disease. The oral vaccine has been a key tool for global efforts to get rid of polio, Lauring says. The more protected the gut, the better the chances of reducing transmission and stopping an outbreak.
Paralysis from poliovirus is rare — affecting around 1 out of infected people. So the single paralytic case identified in July in New York was already a hint that there may have been hundreds of other infections.
The virus has since been detected in wastewater samples from as early as May. Vaccine-derived polioviruses are largely a problem in communities where not enough people are vaccinated. Low immunization rates mean vaccine-derived viruses can spread, largely among unvaccinated people, and circulate silently before someone gets sick. Places that have sanitation issues or struggle with other intestinal diseases are also hot spots for vaccine-derived polioviruses.
Adults who have a high risk of exposure to the virus are eligible for one lifetime booster shot, according to the CDC. Otherwise, people should make sure they received all the recommended doses.
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Polio outbreak new york –
The U. The polio strains in the shots have been killed, meaning the virus cannot mutate into a more virulent form. The inactivated polio vaccine is very effective at preventing disease, but it does not stop transmission of the virus. It builds immunity in the bloodstream, which prevents the virus from attacking the spinal cord and causing paralysis. But the inactivated vaccine does not stop the virus from replicating in the gut, which means transmission between people is still possible if there’s an outbreak.
This means that although people immunized in New York with the inactivated polio vaccine are protected against disease, they can still catch and spread the strain that mutated from the oral vaccine.
This is likely what’s happening in New York right now, Rosenbauer said. Poliovirus has been spreading silently in New York communities for months. After the Rockland County patient developed paralysis, health officials in New York used wastewater surveillance developed during Covid to test sewage samples. The earliest positive sewage samples dated back to April in Orange County. Polioviruses have been found in 69 sewage samples in New York state so far. While the Rockland County adult hadn’t traveled internationally, they attended a large gathering eight days before they started experiencing symptoms, which suggests that they had contracted the virus from someone else in the community, Schnabel Ruppert said.
Most people who catch polio don’t show symptoms, while about 1 in 4 people infected have a mild illness similar to the flu. Paralysis occurs in one out of every or one out every 2, people who catch the virus, depending on the strain. The identification of even a single paralytic case is an alarm bell that indicates the virus has been spreading widely in the community.
The Rockland County health commissioner said she’s very concerned another unvaccinated person in the community could contract paralytic polio. New York Gov. New York Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett on Wednesday declared the poliovirus outbreak an imminent threat to public health.
And we know that there’s still unvaccinated pockets of the population. And so we’re still worried,” said Dr. Eli Rosenberg, one of the leading state public health officials working on New York’s response to the outbreak. New York isn’t the only polio-free place where the virus has reemerged this year. Poliovirus has also been detected in wastewater in London and Jerusalem.
Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search. Polio Investigation in New York Minus Related Pages. About the Investigation. General Overview. Vaccine Recommendations. What Everyone Should Know. Information for Clinicians. Clinical Presentation of Suspected Cases. But because these attenuated versions can replicate, the virus can spread from cell to cell and possibly to other people. Which leads us to the next question. These viruses are related to the oral vaccine.
The problem comes when an attenuated virus from the oral vaccine spreads among too many people and regains its ability to cause paralysis, says Adam Lauring, a virologist and infectious diseases physician at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
In a community with low or no vaccination against polio, such vaccine-derived polioviruses can cause disease. The oral vaccine has been a key tool for global efforts to get rid of polio, Lauring says. The more protected the gut, the better the chances of reducing transmission and stopping an outbreak.
Paralysis from poliovirus is rare — affecting around 1 out of infected people. So the single paralytic case identified in July in New York was already a hint that there may have been hundreds of other infections. The virus has since been detected in wastewater samples from as early as May. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday declared a state of emergency over polio to boost vaccination rates in the state amid further evidence that the virus is spreading in communities. Poliovirus has now been detected in sewage samples from four counties in the New York metro area as well as in the city itself.
The counties are Rockland, Orange, Sullivan, and the latest, Nassau. The samples tested positive for poliovirus that can cause paralysis in humans, according to state health officials. Unvaccinated individuals who live, work, go to school or visit Orange, Rockland, Nassau, New York City and Sullivan are at the highest risk of paralytic disease, officials said.
New York began wastewater surveillance after an unvaccinated adult caught polio in Rockland County in July and suffered from paralysis, the first known infection in the U. The emergency declaration will expand the network of vaccine administrators to include pharmacists, midwives and EMS workers in an effort to boost the immunization rate in areas where it has slipped. New York Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett called on people who are unvaccinated to get their shots immediately.
