Poliovirus detected in wastewater samples from two New York counties

N.New York state health officials announced Thursday that they have detected additional poliovirus in wastewater sampled in two counties in upstate New York City.

A positive wastewater sample was found in Rockland County, where health officials announced two weeks ago that 2os man It has been paralyzed by the so-called vaccine-derived poliovirus, even in nearby Orange County. suggests.

Rockland and Orange counties have lowest vaccination coverage for polio in New York State. Only 60% of infants in Rockland County had received her three doses of polio her vaccine by her second birthday. In Orange County, the rate is 59%. No positive wastewater samples have been reported from nearby Sullivan County, but polio vaccination coverage among 2-year-olds is dismal at 62%.

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These low immunization rates suggest that infants in all three counties are at risk of contracting polio if left unvaccinated.

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State Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said in a press release, “As we learn more, it’s clear what we do know: A polio risk exists in New York right now.” We must meet this moment by ensuring that adults and children up to 2 months old, including people, have up-to-date immunizations, which every New Yorker needs. It’s safe protection against debilitating viruses.”

Bassett said the state health department will continue to monitor wastewater.

New York state could see more cases of paralytic polio, said Kim Thompson, president of the nonprofit Kid Risk and a long-time polio eradication mathematician.

“It’s unlikely you’ll get paralysis, but I think this case shows that it’s not zero,” she said.

“Twenty-two years after the original goal of eradicating polio, the United States should not have polio.”

A global effort to eradicate polio from the planet began in 1988. The goal was to finish the work by the year 2000. Wild polio continues to circulate in pockets of western Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.

Late last year, the virus entered Malawi from Pakistan, where it paralyzed a child. Since then, further outbreaks have occurred, and in Mozambique he reported four cases in 2022.

But wild polio cases are low, with only 18 so far this year. The bigger problem at the moment is vaccine-derived viruses, with more viruses spreading more widely.

A genetic analysis of viruses in positive New York wastewater samples conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed they were related to the virus that paralyzed a man in Rockland County. It was discovered to be associated with a vaccine-derived virus found in sewage. Jerusalem and London.

Vaccine-derived poliovirus is derived from the oral polio vaccine developed by Albert Sabin in the 1950s. The US stopped using this vaccine in 2000. So these viruses must have arrived in this country from infected people or people elsewhere.

Sabin’s vaccine was made using live, attenuated versions of all three polioviruses, types 1 through 3. home or neighborhood. But over time, if you keep finding unvaccinated children infected, you can regain your paralyzing powers. It is the same as a disease that can

Most people with polio have no symptoms. Some people become mildly ill. However, he estimates that for every 1,000 infections, 1-5 people will develop neurological disease (meningitis or some form of paralysis). The latter is usually irreversible.

Since the oral vaccine was discontinued, the United States has relied exclusively on injectable vaccines made from inactivated poliovirus. The IPV vaccine virus, as we know it, cannot paralyze or be transmitted from person to person.

Evidence that the poliovirus is prevalent underscores the importance of increasing vaccine uptake in affected areas. It can be a challenge. There are many Hasidic Jews in Rockland County who resist vaccination for philosophical reasons. This part of New York State experienced a large and prolonged measles epidemic in 2018-2019. This has spurred vaccine resistance in these communities.

“Unvaccinated children and adults should get their first polio shot immediately,” Rockland County Health Commissioner Patricia Schnabel Rupert said in a statement.

The Department of Health also recommends that unvaccinated adults, adults with unknown polio vaccination status, or partially vaccinated adults (those who have not received three doses) be vaccinated. I suggested that it was necessary.