Health
What is the real risk from a polio outbreak in New York? What you need to know
As a polio outbreak in New York could spread to hundreds, officials are sounding the alarm about the resurgence of an infection that plagued past generations before being eradicated by a vaccine decades ago. .
For many New Yorkers, especially those born in the early 1950s or later, when more than 35,000 Americans were stricken with polio annually before immunization became widespread, health warnings were a reminder of the once feared virus. raised a chaotic question that had been largely forgotten about
Officials have offered crash courses in public health on everything from how polio spreads to people at risk of being paralyzed by the infection. They also urged thousands of unvaccinated New Yorkers, including those in the Rockland and Orange counties epicenters, to get vaccinated to limit the spread of the virus.
“It’s tragic because it’s a completely preventable event,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an expert at the Infectious Diseases Society of America, who said polio vaccines provide nearly complete protection against the disease. I mentioned
Schaffner, a professor at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, added, “This is how vaccines work and why we make vaccinations mandatory. So these things don’t happen anymore.”
Against this backdrop, USA TODAY Network New York spoke with Schaffner and Dr. Kimberly Thompson, polio expert and president of Kid Risk, Inc., about what people need to know about polio relapse. Did.
Here are some key facts about polio, based on Schaffner and Thompson’s insights and analysis of state and federal public health information.
New York Polio: The ‘tip of the iceberg’: How state health officials sound the alarm on polio
Who is at risk from the NY Polio epidemic?
Polio poses a threat to those who have not been vaccinated against the virus. This is a group that spans people of all ages, from children too young to receive her recommended four-dose series of vaccines, to people who have not been vaccinated for a variety of reasons.
For example, approximately 1,140,000 New Yorkers are under the age of five. However, the polio vaccine is most effective if the child receives all four of her recommended doses, which are usually completed between the ages of four and her six. York is now endangered by a polio outbreak.
The polio vaccine has been proven to be nearly 100% effective in preventing disease. US health officials declared eradication in 1979despite the rare cases of imports by international travelers.
How many children in New York are not vaccinated against polio?
In addition to their youngest children, some parents in New York state are vaccinating thousands of older children, even though state law requires public and private school students to be vaccinated against polio. Refusing to be vaccinated against polio.
Only 2% of all schools statewide have polio coverage below 90%. some schools are late.
The lagging schools include private and public schools statewide, as well as several Orthodox Jewish communities in Rockland and Orange counties, where the 2019 Religious Support for Vaccinations in Schools It became the center of debate over the abolition of the exemption.
Check your district: Polio vaccination lags behind in some schools
Since the end of religious exemption, many schools have been disallowing children who previously claimed exemption, nearly 26,000 children statewide, or 1% of children in schools in 2018. We have been working to increase vaccination rates.
The number of parents homeschooling their children in New York has also increased since 2019, suggesting that some of these religious exemption cases prompted parents to pull their children out of classrooms to avoid vaccinations. doing.
About 54,400 school children were homeschooled last year, according to state data. This represents a 65% increase for him from her 33,000 children homeschooled in the 2019-20 school year. And a growing number of Americans are joining the national anti-vaccine movement. According to national polls and legislative effortsCOVID-19 obligations and concerns may have played a role as well, but may also have contributed to increased homeschooling.
Some New York counties lag behind statewide vaccination coverage for 2-year-olds at approximately 79%. For example, in Rockland County, age group vaccination coverage is 60%.
How is polio spread?
“The vast majority of polio transmission is via microscopic faeces,” Schaffner said, explaining why children with poor hand washing and poor hygiene have historically been at increased risk. He added that there are
Polio is generally transmitted by people who touch their mouths with faecal-contaminated hands or objects, but there is still a limited risk of spreading the virus through sneezing and coughing droplets, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To do.
Thompson noted that polio is much less dangerous to spread through breathing, sneezing and coughing than COVID-19, but added that some other principles apply to many infections. .
“The main problem with polio and many viruses is that you are most likely to infect someone you have close contact with, such as a family member,” she said.
Another risk factor involves people without the typical flu-like symptoms of polio, who unknowingly spread the virus, whether vaccinated or not, Thompson said. So health officials describe his single case in Rockland as the tip of the iceberg.
“We don’t know how widespread this rogue virus was,” Schaffner said of the Rockland case. There was one case of ,” he added.
Polio: Rockland County Stocks Related to Jerusalem and London
What are the symptoms of polio?
In general, most people infected with the poliovirus, about 72 out of 100, have no visible symptoms, the CDC says. About 1 in 4 infected people also develop flu-like symptoms, including sore throats, fevers and headaches.
Less than 1 in 100, or 1 to 5 in 1,000, infected with the poliovirus develop other, more serious symptoms that affect the brain and spinal cord, such as paralysis, the CDC said. increase.
Is there a cure for polio?
In many ways, polio remains an incurable infection despite decades of medical progress since a vaccine nearly eliminated the virus from spreading in the United States.
“We treat polio the same way we did 40 years ago, but with better ventilators and no iron lungs,” Schaffner said, adding that no antiviral treatment for polio exists. I pointed out not to.
For people facing varying degrees of polio paralysis, he added, treatment usually consists of rehabilitation to maximize function.
“That’s another reason why prevention is so important,” Schaffner said.
According to the CDC, between 2 and 10 out of 100 people paralyzed by poliovirus infection die.
Children who appear to be fully recovered may develop new muscle soreness, weakness, or paralysis as adults 15 to 40 years later. It’s called post-polio syndrome.
3 shots in 7 months: How to keep up with polio immunization
What is vaccine-derived poliovirus?
The vaccine-derived poliovirus is a strain related to the live, attenuated poliovirus contained in the oral polio vaccine, CDC said.
The United States stopped using the oral polio vaccine in 2000 because of the rare risk of vaccine-derived cases. Currently, we use only the inactivated poliovirus vaccine, which is injected into the leg or arm.
However, some countries continue to use oral polio vaccines today because injectable vaccines are expensive and complicated to administer. A global effort is underway to transition all countries to an injectable polio vaccine.
Polio cases in Rockland County have been linked to travelers carrying vaccine-derived poliovirus, which could cause illness and paralysis if allowed to spread in areas with low vaccination coverage, health officials said. , may revert to a more dangerous form.
Chris McKenna and Nancy Cutler of the USA TODAY Network contributed to this report.
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