In fact, polio has been eradicated in the United States since the 1970s. Now the authorities in New York are sounding the alarm: polio viruses are romping about in the sewage of the metropolis.
The New York health authority fears the spread of polio, which is considered eradicated in the United States, in the metropolis. New York city and state health officials said poliovirus had been detected in the sewage system. City Health Department chief Ashwin Vasan urged New Yorkers to get vaccinated: “The risk for New Yorkers is real, but protection is so simple – get vaccinated against polio.” In the metropolis, 14 percent of children between the ages of six months and five years are not fully vaccinated against polio.
Authorities pointed to a case in July when an unvaccinated person contracted polio in Rockland County, which borders the metropolis, the first case in the United States in almost a decade. According to the local health authority, an initial sequencing at the time indicated that the transmission had come from a person who had been vaccinated with the oral polio vaccine, which contains live, weakened viruses. This is no longer permitted in the USA. Therefore, the virus may have originated from somewhere outside the country.
Polio is divided into wild-type and vaccine-derived viruses. Wild poliovirus has been found in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but was also detected in Africa this year. Polio cases in several countries can also be caused by viruses from live vaccines. In the USA and also in Germany only inactive polio vaccine is used. The authorities did not write whether the viruses found in the wastewater came from a vaccine or whether it was the wild type of the polio virus.
According to media reports, polio has been eradicated in the United States since 1979. The last known case of vaccine polio was in 2013 in a baby with a very weak immune system. Polio is a contagious, infectious disease that can cause paralysis and death. It can cause permanent paralysis, especially in small children. The highly contagious virus is often spread through contaminated water. So far there is no cure for polio, the virus has been defeated with nationwide vaccinations.
