Polio detected in New York City wastewater
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Health officials found poliovirus in New York City wastewater, the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced Friday. That means polio is likely circulating undetected in the city.
The virus was previously detected in wastewater samples from Orange County and Rockland County, north of the city, in May, June and July. One case of paralytic polio was identified in Rockland County last month, in an unvaccinated adult.
"The risk to New Yorkers is real, but the defense is so simple — get vaccinated against polio," New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said in a statement.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children get four doses of the polio vaccine: the first at 2 months old, the second at 4 months, the third at 6 through 18 months, and the last between 4 and 6 years old.
Most people get those shots as part of their routine childhood immunizations. In New York City, around 86% of children ages 6 months to 5 years old have received the first three doses. Statewide, 79% of New Yorkers have received three doses by age 2.
But polio vaccination rates are far lower in Orange and Rockland counties, at around 60% among children under 2 years old.
New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said the discovery of polio in New York City wastewater was "alarming, but not surprising."
"For every one case of paralytic polio identified, hundreds more may be undetected," Bassett said in a statement.
The Rockland County patient was infected with vaccine-derived polio, a strain linked to live, weakened virus used in an oral polio vaccine that is no longer administered in the U.S.
A person who takes the oral polio vaccine can briefly shed live virus, so if a community has a low vaccination rate, the virus can then spread. If it circulates widely enough, it can mutate to be more virulent.
"We need to do some sewer surveillance to find out exactly how extensive it is," said Vincent Racaniello, a microbiology and immunology professor at Columbia University. "I would guess that in the major cities where people are traveling from countries where they're using the infectious vaccine, you'd find it in the sewers."
In London, the UK Health Security Agency recently detected polio in wastewater in eight of the city's 32 boroughs. The city is now offering booster shots to children ages 1 to 9.
The New York City health department said Friday that most adults who were vaccinated as children do not need any additional shots. But vaccinated adults who are at increased risk of exposure to the virus are eligible for a booster.
Unvaccinated people above age 4 should receive three doses instead of four, according to the CDC. Those who are partially vaccinated should get the remaining doses, no matter how much time has elapsed since their initial shots.
Polio is highly infectious, but around 72% of people infected have no visible symptoms, according to the CDC. Another 25% may develop flulike symptoms that tend to resolve within days. Polio only rarely causes permanent paralysis of the arms and legs. It can also result in meningitis (swelling of the brain and spinal cord membranes) or paresthesia (the feeling of pins and needles in the legs).
The CDC estimates that 2% to 10% of cases of paralytic polio among children are fatal. Among adolescents and adults, the fatality rate is higher: 15% to 30%.
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Aren't the majority of people vaccinated against polio?
Yes, but there are areas where vaccination rates are likely low enough to allow to allow an outbreak.
Apparently, the fear of Big Pharma is worse that the fear of one's child being in an iron lung, which, BTW, is hard to come by these days.
The stupid parents who are against childhood vaccinations. Way too many diseases that were practically eliminated are making a comeback these days.
Exactly. Polio had been considered eliminated in the US. It was mostly found in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where those attempting to provide vaccinations were at a fairly high risk of being killed.
Congratulations, anit-vaxx parents. You've managed to make us more similar, health-wise, to a superstitious war-torn region riddled with tribalism and contemptuous of human life. Well done.
I remember taking it in a sugar cube a long time ago. I suspect this a gift from an illegal.
When you have legal immigration you can screen for diseases like this from knowing where they came from and quarantine and vaccinate accordingly, but when you just let them pour over the border illegally, this is what happens.
I got a polio vaccination as an injection around 1960. Later around 1970, I was given a sugar cube and after I took it, things weren't quite the same.
I suspect this gift was illegal.
A number of different viruses have been breaking out lately, and although I'm no virologist I'm wondering if the hot weather has anything to do with it. Although we are pretty well virus free where I am, we're sweltering during weeks long temperatures over 100 F, with today and then the next few days will be 107 F and no rain. Thank God for air conditioning.
Generally, viruses don't do well in the heat, but if the heat drives people indoors to enjoy the AC, then viruses can thrive.
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A totally different virus, suspected to have been transmitted from shrews, has cropped up in China. I don't recall such a proliferation of viruses happening at one time.
I doubt they'd be tracked if they weren't either infecting humans or affecting livestock, so it may well happen all the time, and we just don't know about it.
Same here. Which makes me wonder whether it is just a coincidence, or is it some sort of germ warfare someone is playing against not only the human population, but, some of the animal population as well. It seems like there is an endless occurrence of mutations and new types of viri cropping up one after the other. Curious minds want to know.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Since most of the viruses are transmitted from animals, bats, etc. it COULD be a war that the animal kingdom is waging against the humans who have been making the world uninhabitable for all life forms.
Well, that may be, Buzz. However, I don't think the animals are spreading the viri to humans in retaliation, but, they are the pawns of some very sick minds who are using them to hide their diabolical identities. Especially, if they are a country looking for world dominance. There are some countries who have a very high population are not at all concerned with the fact that their own people may pay a very high price, as they consider them to be disposable goods.
It may not be first time such heinous actions have occurred. Germ warfare is not new. And the fact that these sicknesses are coming one after the other is, imho, not just a coincidence, even reintroducing long dormant viri, such as polio, and now the monkeypox is showing up.
Some may say I have an over active imagination, but, it is just not reasonable to me that all these viri are now cropping up one after the other from different animals and/or sources around the world.
Your insinuation is regrettable.
Polio has not been dormant. Neither has monkeypox. There have been polio outbreaks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where vaccination rates are low. Monkeypox, although fairly rare, has occurred in Africa. It is more easily spread now because we stopped vaccinating for smallpox, which is closely related to monkeypox, decades ago. Monkeypox now has a vulnerable population, which it did not have a few decades ago.
Thanks for the additional info, sandy. I have never heard of monkeypox before, so for me it was a new viris or whatever it is. If polio has indeed been prevalent in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan it must not have widely reported until now. With all the news coming out of Afghanistan during the US occupation there for so many years it would seem that is would have been well noted.
But, at any rate, old or new, the spread of so many viri all at once does not seem to be coincidence for me, regardless of how they are now being so rapidly coming.
What is regrettable is your apparently assuming to know who I was thinking of. And you would be wrong.
If you don't want assumptions then say what you mean instead of inviting speculation. My comment was not politicized and blamed humanity generally for what is happening.
We now have this to deal with. From what I gather it use to be mainly in tropical areas. I guess we are warm enough for it to live.
We also get this one. Vibrio vulnificus, a flesh eating bacteria in the waters.
I am of a time I didn't get the smallpox vac. I was the first or second year they decided it was no longer necessary.
So no scar on my arm.
Same - no scar here.
Got the scar. It was never a big deal.
I was born after the smallpox vaccine was discontinued for most people.
Same here. And it is still visible, just not not so noticeable now.
Both of my parents had polio.
I had what they thought was a light case of polio when I was in the 3rd grade, even though I had recently had the polio vaccine. I had to have a penicillin shot twice a day, morning and night for two weeks in the hospital. The shots were in my butt, altering sides, and hurt like the dickens and it was very painful to sit or lay on my back. Whether it was really polio or some other type of illness I never really knew.