The disease is transmitted through contaminated water and food, or by contact with an infected person, many do not become seriously ill, but some can go on to develop acute flaccid paralysis.
“Polio is highly infectious and timely action is critical in protecting children through effective vaccination… We are supporting the national efforts to ramp up polio vaccination to ensure that no child is missed and faces no risk of polio’s debilitating impact.” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “The detection of the circulating poliovirus type 2 shows the effectiveness of the country’s disease surveillance”, said Dr. “Additionally, five samples from environmental surveillance of wastewater confirmed the presence of the circulating poliovirus type 2”, said a press release issued by the World Health Organization ( WHO). “I urge all unvaccinated Orange County residents to get vaccinated as soon as medically feasible.Heath authorities said there was a confirmed case in an unvaccinated four-year-old child in Isale district, in western Burundi, as well as two other children with whom he had been in contact “It is concerning that polio, a disease that has been largely eradicated through vaccination, is now circulating in our community, especially given the low rates of vaccination for this debilitating disease in certain areas of our County,” said Orange County Health Commissioner Irina Gelman said. The Orange County wastewater samples were initially collected from municipal wastewater treatment plants for COVID-19 testing.
Polio outbreak series#
Statewide, about 79% of have completed their polio vaccination series by age two. Rockland and Orange counties are both known as centers of vaccine resistance. The disease is fatal for between 5-10% of those paralyzed.Īll school children in New York are required to have a polio vaccine, but enforcement of vaccination rules in some areas can be lax. A small percentage of people who get the disease suffer paralysis. Polio, once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, was declared eliminated in the United States in 1979, more than two decades after vaccines became available.Ī majority of people infected with polio have no symptoms, but can still shed the virus and give it to others for days or weeks. They urge anyone who haven’t already been vaccinated against polio to do so right away. Officials say this is evidence of transmission, the first in the U.S. We must meet this moment by ensuring that adults, including pregnant people, and young children by 2 months of age are up to date with their immunization - the safe protection against this debilitating virus that every New Yorker needs.” “As we learn more, what we do know is clear: the danger of polio is present in New York today. “Coupled with the latest wastewater findings, the Department is treating the single case of polio as just the tip of the iceberg of much greater potential spread,” she said. The state health department says the samples are genetically linked to the polio case identified in a Rockland County resident.īut based on earlier polio outbreaks, “New Yorkers should know that for every one case of paralytic polio observed, there may be hundreds of other people infected,” the state’s health commissioner, Dr. This comes after the virus was recently found in at least seven wastewater samples from Rockland and Orange counties. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it has deployed a team to New York to investigate a potential outbreak of polio.
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