New York City health officials have detected traces of polio in city wastewater.
The New York State Department of Health and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced the finding in a press release, saying the discovery came as part of routine wastewater examination. Polio had previously been discovered in New York's Orange and Rockland counties. Health officials urged residents to get vaccinated in response.
“For every one case of paralytic polio identified, hundreds more may be undetected,” State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett warned in the statement. “The detection of poliovirus in wastewater samples in New York City is alarming, but not surprising. Already, the State Health Department — working with local and federal partners — is responding urgently, continuing case investigation and aggressively assessing spread.
“The risk to New Yorkers is real but the defense is so simple — get vaccinated against polio,” Vasan said. “With polio circulating in our communities there is simply nothing more essential than vaccinating our children to protect them from this virus, and if you’re an unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated adult, please choose now to get the vaccine. Polio is entirely preventable and its reappearance should be a call to action for all of us.
Prior to July 21, when it was detected in a Rockland resident, the last case of polio via domestic infection from wild poliovirus in the United States was in 1979, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The last documented case in the U.S. was in 2013. Polio, once a feared childhood illness, is known for causing paralysis in victims. In the late 1940s, it disabled an estimated 35,000 children a year. Fifteen thousand cases of polio paralysis were documented in the 1950s, falling to just 100 in the 1960s after the invention of the polio vaccine.Eighty-six point two percent of New York City children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years old are vaccinated, according to Fox 5 New York, leaving 13.8% of children vulnerable.
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