Polio case in New York

[BunsenBurner]

Anyone who does not think that vaccinating their kiddos against polio is a necessity should read this!

The man in the iron lung

ETA: or this!

Decades after polio, Martha is among the last to still rely on an iron lung...

[BunsenBurner]

I doubt there was any monitoring until it hit the proverbial fan. The CDC is stretched thin… now, after they ditched Covid, they can play catch-up with the other crap that snuck up on us.

[twogirls]

The county began monitoring once the initial case was found. They are now waiting for recent/updated wastewater testing results from the state and CDC.

The virus has been found in prior wastewater testing, but as of today there is “only” one symptomatic case.

[oldmom4896]

Polio virus found in New York City wastewater

The discovery extends the virus’s presence from the northern New York suburbs to the nation’s largest city

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/12/polio-wastewater-nyc-rockland-orange-county/

[ucbalumnus]

@twogirls

The virus has been found in prior wastewater testing, but as of today there is “only” one symptomatic case.

Since the virus is from the weakened oral polio vaccine virus, it is not a surprise that symptomatic polio cases from it are rare compared to wild polio virus. Symptomatic polio cases from it would only occur if the virus mutates back into a virulent form that infects someone without immunity against polio.

Otherwise, the spreading virus is basically giving people another dose of oral polio vaccine. While this is not necessarily a bad thing in places where wild polio is endemic (better to get accidentally vaccinated than to get wild polio), the reason oral polio vaccine was discontinued in the US was that the risk of live vaccine virus mutating back to a virulent form became the primary polio risk in the US once wild polio was eliminated in the US through vaccination. An inactivated virus vaccine given by injection is now used in the US.

[ucbalumnus]

CDC report on the case:

Public Health Response to a Case of Paralytic Poliomyelitis...

@CDC MMWR

The findings in this report represent only the second community transmission of poliovirus identified in the United States since 1979 (1). At present, the origin of the VDPV2 detected in the patient’s stool and in sewage samples remains unknown. Because the patient had not traveled internationally during the potential exposure period, detection of VDPV2 in the patient’s stool samples indicates a chain of transmission within the United States originating with a person who received a type 2-containing oral polio vaccine (OPV) abroad; OPV was removed from the routine immunization schedule in the United States in 2000. Genome sequence comparisons have identified a link to vaccine-related type 2 polioviruses recently detected in wastewater in Israel and the United Kingdom.¶¶ In general, approximately one in 1,900 poliovirus type 2 infections among unvaccinated persons is expected to result in paralysis (6). As of August 10, 2022, no additional poliomyelitis cases have been identified, although the detection of VDPV2 genetically linked to virus from the patient in wastewater specimens from two counties in New York State over the course of ≥2 months indicates community transmission and ongoing risk for paralysis to unvaccinated persons.