Polio worries parents. Doctors say vaccination is the answer.

News that the poliovirus has been found Circulating wastewater in New York City It sparked a wide response from city parents on Monday. Some were unfazed. Others were frightened.

But public health officials gave them a simple message: Get your kids vaccinated.

In South Williamsburg, a largely Hasidic enclave of Brooklyn, polio vaccination rates among five-year-olds were among the lowest in the city, and mothers pushed swings on playgrounds and watched their children play. The only case ever discovered is hers, a paralyzed Rockland County resident whose mother several believe the situation is alarming but not an immediate threat. said.

“It’s worrying,” said Esther Klein, 24, a Hasidic mother of a 1-year-old son who lives in South Williamsburg. “I want to make sure his vaccine is updated,” she added, noting that what worries her is if more people start getting sick.

At nearby Domino Park, several mothers said their pediatrician had reassured them that their children had been vaccinated and would be fine. Despite the condition, she said she was afraid of her daughter, who was about to turn 2 years old.

Some parents anxiously called the pediatrician’s office for guidance and scheduled an immunization appointment for Monday, so they were largely relieved. Their children should be protected as long as they comply.

Polio vaccines are highly effective. The first dose is usually given when the baby is two months old. The first second he will be given after two months. After her two doses, she is at least 90% protected against paralytic polio.

The third dose is usually given when the baby is 6 months old. That dose gives her nearly 99% protection against paralytic polio. Giving her 4th dose after the child is 4 years old ensures that the high protection will last for life.

“My advice is to stick to the vaccine schedule and everything will be fine,” said Dr. Peter Silver, a pediatrician and Northwell Health’s deputy chief medical officer. “If you are vaccinated, I don’t think there is a big risk. It is the unvaccinated people who are at risk.”

Infants under 4 months of age are usually protected by maternal antibodies, assuming the mother has been vaccinated.

In London, polio has been rampant in sewers since February, and it has recently recommended that children between the ages of 1 and 9 get a booster vaccination. booster doseBut the outbreak in New York has yet to reach that level, according to public health officials. In addition to the confirmed cases in Rockland County, authorities have found 20 positive wastewater samples in Rockland and Orange counties combined. 6 positive samples During urban drainage in June and July.

“At present, the recommendation that people who are fully vaccinated against polio should be given a booster or that children receiving a series of vaccines should be given an earlier or booster dose. No,” Weill Cornell Medicine doctors wrote Monday in an email to reassure patients.

Anyone with an unknown polio vaccination history is eligible to be vaccinated, including adults. However, people born after 1955 are usually vaccinated to attend school. A once-in-a-lifetime booster dose is available for those who are particularly at risk.

With only one case of paralytic polio so far in the New York area, health officials said:tip of the iceberg”Regarding the wider circulation of polio, as cases of paralysis are very rare.

The only positive case in the area was an unvaccinated 20-year-old male in Rockland County. Doctors suspected acute flaccid myelitis as the cause of his leg paralysis before he tested positive for polio in July. The infection was not travel-related, as the patient did not travel during the period.

Authorities have not released a detailed biography of the man, but local officials say he is part of the Hasidic community there.vaccine skepticism in circulation among some of the community During the Covid-19 Pandemic.

While the majority of Hasidic children are vaccinated, a significant minority remain due to vaccine concerns and the pandemic making it difficult to adhere to vaccination schedules, especially for children from large families. Not vaccinated. But the community is not monolithic, and tensions persist between those who resist the vaccine and those who believe such resistance is endangering their communities.

“In my view, this has a lot to do with the anti-vaccination opposition,” said Joseph Rapaport, a Hasidic media consultant and pro-vaccination podcaster. “The combination of delays in immunization and the growing anti-vaccine movement means we are just waiting for catastrophe,” he said.

The Williamsburg pediatrician spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid breaking trust with patients. They often preferred to delay administration until later in childhood when the child’s immune system was stronger. She said she saw the same trend. Measles spreads in the area 2019.

In Rockland County, health officials regularly host free vaccination clinics to increase vaccination coverage. Refuah Health, one of the region’s leading primary care providers, said he administered 450 polio vaccines between July 21 and August 11, a spokesperson said. Stated. More than half of them were for children under the age of two.

Some health care providers have reported an increase in immunizations in recent weeks, Aug. 1In Rockland and Orange counties, only 60% of children under the age of 2 received all three recommended polio immunizations. But the low rates are not confined to Hasidic areas, said Orange County Health Commissioner Irina Gelman.

86% of New York City children under the age of 5 received three doses of the polio vaccine. However, vaccination by zip code shows much lower rates in different regions representing different populations.

Right behind Williamsburg, which has a 56% vaccination rate for children under five, is Battery Park City, a wealthy neighborhood in Manhattan. Other areas with low childhood vaccination coverage include parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville, where the population is predominantly black, and the politically conservative, predominantly white area of ​​Staten Island. Includes the south end.

“Wastewater sampling is not specific to areas populated by people who are shedding poliovirus,” said Patrick Garahue, a spokesman for the city’s health department.

New York does not plan a pop-up polio vaccination campaign, but the city reaching out to health care providers In areas with low immunization coverage, ask families with delayed immunizations to contact them immediately. About 93% of her children under the age of 5 in the city have had at least one vaccination of hers.

Polio is a virus that spreads from person to person primarily through infected faeces that enter the body through the mouth. About 75% of people with polio have no visible symptoms, but they can still spread the virus. About 25% have mild symptoms such as fever, muscle weakness, headache and nausea. About 1 in 200 people, polio infects a person’s brain and spinal cord and can lead to permanent paralysis and even death.

The success of the vaccine and national immunization programs led to a dramatic decline in polio cases in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The last polio case detected in the United States was in 2013.