New York health officials on Thursday reported a polio case, the first in the U.S. in nearly a decade.
Officials said the Rockland County resident is an unvaccinated adult, but they did not detail the person’s condition.
It appears the person had a vaccine-derived strain of the virus, perhaps from someone who got live vaccine — available in other countries, but not the U.S. — and spread it, officials said.
Polio was once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, with annual outbreaks causing thousands of cases of paralysis — many of them in children.
Vaccines became available starting in 1955, and a national vaccination campaign cut the annual number of U.S. cases to less than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 1979, polio was declared eliminated in the U.S., meaning there was no longer routine spread. Rarely, travelers with polio have brought infections into the U.S., with the last such case in 2013.
U.S. children are still routinely vaccinated against polio. Federal officials recommend four doses: to be given at 2 months of age; 4 months; at 6 to 18 months; and at age 4 through 6 years. Some states require only three doses.
According to the CDC’s most recent childhood vaccination data, about 93% of 2-year-olds had received at least three doses of polio vaccine.
Polio spreads mostly from person to person or through contaminated water. It can infect a person’s spinal cord, causing paralysis and possibly permanent disability and death. The disease mostly affects children.
Polio is endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, although numerous countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia have also reported cases in recent years.
Rockland County, in New York City’s northern suburbs, has been a center of vaccine resistance in recent years. A 2018-2019 measles outbreak there infected 312 people.
Last month, health officials in Britain warned parents to make sure children have been vaccinated because the polio virus had been found in London sewage samples. No cases of paralysis were reported.
(AP)
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8 Responses
“Polio was once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, with annual outbreaks causing thousands of cases of paralysis — many of them in children.”
As my antivax friends like to describe it, those were the good old days!
1. This article is clearly anti semetic, against the largely jewish population of rockland county. Shame on yeshiva world for spewing such anti semetic rhetoric.
2. What hashgacha that so many vaccine requiring diseases are going around now….
Has Rockland County’s vaccine resistance, in whole or in part, come from its frum communities?
Nu, at least have some decency to edit the article, i cannot beleive a FRUM JEWISH news website can put up antisemetic hate!!!!!!
Have any of you read the article?
It says: “It appears the person had a vaccine-derived strain of the virus, perhaps from someone who got live vaccine” Then it goes on to spew against vaccine resistance in the community. I wonder why they are skeptical?
Umm
Unless this article has been stealthily edited in the meantime, I don’t know what people are complaining about. It doesn’t even mention Jews
Huju, vaccine resistance in Rockland is found ALSO among Jews, but it is not exclusive to them. There are a lot of “crunchy granola” types in Rockland, and that is where this memetic disease came from, and has infected the Jews as well. But the medical authorities’ actions in the last 2.5 years have lent a lot of undeserved credibility to such resistance. When we see with our own eyes that we can’t trust them, we naturally start to wonder how far back their mendacity runs, and how deep, and that fuels the resistance.
Bunny76, live vaccine is not used in this country, and has not been used for decades. It is not an issue here, and certainly not a reason to resist vaccination.
It is reported that this person had an oral vaccine not used in US. If you look at the list of countries where polio is still happening – this includes Afghanistan/Pakistan, Central Africa .. and a tiny UAE. I wonder whether Israelis could get exposed there and then bring it to US.
Also, keep in mind that in some communities things get detected better. Some of the early covid cases were in Jewish community? Why? Because a Jewish lawyer was told that he should just deal with his cough, refused to take that for an answer. You can imagine someone from a less educated community would not have argued.