It was a single case of illness that made Brittany Strickland say she was terrified. For the first time in nine years, a case of polio was discovered in the United States in July — and the 33-year-old from Pomona in Rockland County, located nearly 30 miles north of Manhattan in New York State, had not been vaccinated as a child against polio. “My mother was against vaccination,” Strickland says.
Polio, or poliomyelitis for short, was once common and feared around the world. Thousands of children died in waves of infection or became permanently paralyzed until a vaccine was found in the 1950s. The infectious disease is now considered eradicated in most regions of the world. Only in countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan does polio still occur.
Until recently, virologist John Dennehy of City University in New York also assumed that polio was “a virus on its way to extinction”. But then the case was reported in Pomona in July. Since then, the virus has also been found in sewage samples in Rockland and a neighboring county, as well as metropolitan New York — so it appears to be spreading.
danger for unvaccinated
The wild type of the virus is unlikely to cause any problems in New York. The oral polio vaccination used in the US until the year 2000 protects vaccinated people well against infection, but can lead to infection in other people through feces in waste water contaminated with vaccine viruses. The resulting virus variant, although weaker than wild polio virus, can still cause severe illness and paralysis in unvaccinated individuals.
The infected person in Pomona was a young man who had not been vaccinated against polio. It was a “troubling but not surprising” case, the New York City health department said. She called on all people who have not yet been vaccinated to get vaccinated quickly. In Rockland, vaccinations are even free.
New York is vaccination taillight
While the vaccination rate for two-year-olds is 92 percent nationwide, only 79 percent are vaccinated in New York state, according to the US CDC. In Rockland, at 60 percent, slightly more than every second toddler has received a polio vaccination.
Local media reported that the infected man, a man in his 20s, was from an Orthodox Jewish community in Rockland. Orthodox Jews, in particular, are skeptical of vaccinations and are heavily represented in Rockland County. More than a dozen rabbis recently issued an open letter urging their parishioners to get vaccinated against polio.
Just the “tip of the iceberg”?
Whether the Pomona case is part of a larger outbreak is still unclear. Virologist Dennehy fears that this is just the “tip of the iceberg”. Only a few of those infected will show symptoms and only a fraction will develop paralytic poliomyelitis with the typical paralysis. However, if the disease spreads, more severe cases would also occur.
Strickland has since been vaccinated against polio. “You think something like this won’t happen here. And then some people don’t get vaccinated — and now we’re in this situation.”
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
