Resurgence of polio in US puts health officials on high alert

Recently, New York declared a state of emergency over polio in an effort to boost vaccination rates after evidence of the spread of the virus when found in wastewater samples in Nassau County on Long Island.

In August 2022, New York State Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said that the state’s health department is “treating a single case of polio as the tip of the iceberg of a very high potential spread”.

“Based on the first polio outbreak, New Yorkers should be aware that for every single case of paralytic polio, hundreds of others may be infected,” he said.

Read also: United States: State of emergency declared over polio in New York

Rosemary Rochford, a professor of immunology and microbiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, explains that a single case of polio represents a large potential spread of the virus because most people infected either show no symptoms or are very similar with flu-like symptoms. Mild illness. ,

Rochford explained, even without symptoms, an infected person is still expelling the virus in their stool, which means they can be a source of infection for others.

The decline of polio was a direct result of the introduction of vaccines in the US and globally, and the public’s willingness to accept them. Along with the World Health Organization, in partnership with Rotary International, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other national governments launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1998, an estimated 350,000 children were still suffering from polio in 125 countries. In 2021, there were only six reported cases.

Now with one case reported in the US, health officials are recommending vaccination through routine childhood immunization. However, the CDC recommends that people who have not been vaccinated against the polio virus should be vaccinated, including adults.

With PTI input.

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