Health officials said Friday that polio has been detected in New York City’s wastewater, suggesting that the virus that causes the disease may have been spreading in the city.
The announcement comes three weeks after a man in Rockland County, NY, just north of the city, was diagnosed with polio, which left him paralyzed. Health officials fear that the detection of polio in New York City’s wastewater may precede other cases of paralytic polio.
Spreading the virus poses a risk to non-vaccinated people, but a three-dose course of the vaccine provides at least 99 percent protection.
Most adults in the United States were vaccinated against polio as children. In New York City, the overall rate of polio vaccination among children under the age of 5 is 86 percent. Still, in the ZIP codes of some cities, less than two-thirds of the children in that group received a complete diet, a figure that worries health officials. (Vaccination rates across the city declined amid the pandemic, as visits to pediatricians were postponed.)
Although many people who become infected with polio do not develop symptoms, according to health officials, about 4 percent will develop viral meningitis and about 1 in 200 will become paralyzed. Officials said parents of children who have not yet been fully vaccinated should check that they are immediately.
“The risk to New Yorkers is real but prevention is so simple – get vaccinated against polio,” New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said in a statement. “With polio spreading in our communities, nothing is more essential than vaccination to protect our children from this virus, and if you are an unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated adult, please choose to receive the vaccine now. “
“Polio is completely preventable and its reappearance should be a call to action for all of us,” he said.
While the polio virus had previously been detected in samples of wastewater in Rockland and neighboring Orange counties, Friday’s announcement was the first sign found in New York City.
The city’s health department did not provide details about where polio was actually found in the wastewater in the five cities, nor did officials provide dates for detecting the virus or how many samples were tested. was positive.
The last case of polio was detected in the United States in 2013 in Rockland County. Before the introduction of vaccines, the virus was a source of fear, especially during the summer months, when the chances of its spread diminished. peak. In those days, preventive steps included closing public swimming pools and asking parents to keep their children indoors.
In 1916, polio killed 6,000 people in the United States and left at least 21,000 others—most of them children—with some permanent disability. New York City, and Brooklyn in particular, were badly affected. An outbreak in 1952 paralyzed more than 20,000 people, and locked many children with iron lungs. The first effective vaccine appeared only a few years later, and the virus began to subside.
Today, polio is endemic in only two countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and has been kept at bay elsewhere through the widespread use of vaccines.
(This story has not been edited by seemayo staff and is published from a rss feed)