NEW YORK — Citing new evidence of possible “community spread,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday confirmed that a federal team has been sent to New York to investigate the Empire State’s first diagnosed case of polio in nearly a decade.
Read more trending news “CDC continues to work with the New York State Department of Health to investigate the recent case of polio, including continuing to test sewage samples for poliovirus and deploying a small team in New York to assist on the ground in research and vaccination efforts. ,” an agency spokesman said in a prepared statement obtained by WNBC-TV on Sunday. The state’s only case to date was traced to an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County who suffered from paralysis. According to CBS News, New York state health officials have found evidence of additional cases of the polio virus in sewage samples from two different counties, prompting warnings that hundreds of people may have been infected. “Based on past polio cases, New Yorkers should be aware that for every one case of paralytic polio that is seen, there may be hundreds of other people who are infected,” said State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett in a prepared statement. In turn, state health officials on Thursday stepped up their push for people who have not been vaccinated against the virus to get vaccinated “immediately” because the diagnosed case could be “the tip of the iceberg” of a much broader threat, The New York Times reported. Three positive sewage samples from Rockford County and four from neighboring Orange County that researchers have linked genetically to Rockford County’s unique diagnosis suggest the polio virus is spreading in local communities, the health department said in a news release issued Thursday . “Combined with the latest sewage findings, the department is treating the isolated case of polio as the tip of the iceberg of a much larger potential spread. As we learn more, what we know is clear: The risk of polio is present in New York today,” said Bassett. Polio was declared eradicated in the United States in 1979, more than two decades after vaccines became available, WNBC reported. “We must meet this moment by ensuring that adults, including pregnant women, and young children as young as 2 months old are up to date with their vaccinations – the safe protection against this debilitating virus that every New Yorker needs,” Bassett added. Before the development of a polio vaccine in the 1950s, thousands of Americans died in polio epidemics and tens of thousands, many of them children, were left with varying degrees of paralysis, CBS News reported. According to the CDC’s most recent childhood immunization data, about 93 percent of 2-year-olds nationwide had received at least three doses of polio vaccine, the network reported. Meanwhile, unvaccinated adults can get a three-dose immunization, and those who are vaccinated but considered high-risk can get a lifetime booster shot, according to the health department. ©2022 Cox Media Group
