The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday that the United States now qualifies under the World Health Organization criteria as having "circulating vaccine-deprived poliovirus" after an unvaccinated person in Rockland County, New York, developed paralytic polio, and samples of local wastewater sites there tested positive for poliovirus.
According to the agency, the findings mean that the virus continues to be transmitted in that region.
"The virus' genetic sequences from the patient from Rockland County, New York, and wastewater specimens collected in New York have been linked to wastewater samples in Jerusalem, Israel, and London, United Kingdom, indicating community transmission," the agency said in a press release Tuesday. "The viral sequences from the patient and from three wastewater specimens had enough genetic changes to meet the definition of a vaccine-derived poliovirus."
The United States joins 30 other countries where vaccine-deprived poliovirus has been identified, and its genetic changes could allow it to regain its potency to infect the nervous system, possibly causing paralysis, the CDC release said.
"Polio vaccination is the safest and best way to fight this debilitating disease and it is imperative that people in these communities who are unvaccinated get up to date on polio vaccination right away," Dr. José R. Romero, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in the release. "We cannot emphasize enough that polio is a dangerous disease for which there is no cure."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order in that state Sept. 9, declaring a "disaster emergency" through Oct. 9 that allows state agencies to "take appropriate action" with local governments to cope with the emergency.
The order calls for certified emergency medical technicians, paramedics and advanced EMS providers to be able to give polio vaccines to patients without a specific prescription, as well as pharmacies and nurses.
The order also allows the reporting of the vaccinations to the state without the consent of the person being vaccinated, the order said.
According to the CDC, polio has been around since ancient times, and can cause paralysis in 1 of every 200-2,000 cases, depending on the type of virus.
Most people will not show any visible symptoms of the virus, and only 1 in 4 will develop flu-like symptoms including sore throat, fever, tiredness, nausea, headache or stomach pain, according to the agency.
Two forms of polio vaccine are in use: an oral vaccine and an injection of the "inactivated" polio virus.
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