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2 Polio was declared eradicated in the US in because of high vaccination rates against the virus. The declaration of a state disaster. In the past few months, there have been several genetically linked Sabin-like type 2 poliovirus (SL2) detections from environmental samples in. — New York declared a state disaster emergency Friday after poliovirus was detected in wastewater samples from Long Island, signaling growing.
Polio emergency declared in New York State over virus found in wastewater | The BMJ
In the late s, more than 35, people were paralyzed from polio in the U. But the advent of an effective vaccine in dramatically reduced the spread of the disease to less than cases annually by the s. The virus had been eliminated from the U. How polio reemerged in New York this year remains the subject of investigation, but public health officials believe the virus originated overseas in a country that still uses the oral polio vaccine.
American health officials stopped using the oral vaccine more than 20 years ago because it contains live virus that can — in rare circumstances — mutate to become virulent, but it is still common in other countries. Genetic analysis of New York poliovirus samples indicates a weakened virus strain used in one of the oral vaccines mutated over time to cause the outbreak.
Combined with low vaccination rates in some New York communities and greater international travel, this provided an opening for the virus to slip back into the U. The oral polio vaccines are generally safe, effective, cheap and easy to administer.
They have played a crucial role in the global campaign to eradicate polio, one of the most ambitious public health initiatives since smallpox was successfully stamped out in Two of the three naturally occurring poliovirus strains, called wild types , have been eradicated in the 21st century. As recently as , polio paralyzed , children annually across countries, according to data from the polio eradication initiative. Today, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where the remaining wild type polio is still endemic, with 27 cases confirmed so far this year.
The global fight against polio has relied on the oral vaccine’s ability to block transmission of the virus. The oral vaccine uses a live but weakened form of poliovirus that replicates in the gut. This builds immunity in the intestines that can block the virus from shedding in human feces and contaminating the environment. Although recently immunized people can pass the oral vaccine virus on to others for a few weeks, it’s not normally a problem because the strain is weakened so it does not cause disease, Rosenbauer said.
When the weakened virus from the vaccine spreads from person to person, it can actually help build immunity in a community, he said. The transmission eventually burns out once enough people have immunity, he said. The problem begins when immunization rates are so low in a community that the weakened virus from the vaccine spreads uninterrupted for a prolonged period and mutates into a virulent strain , called a vaccine-derived poliovirus.
And when people who are not immunized catch the mutated vaccine-derived virus, they can become paralyzed, like the patient in Rockland County. New York has been struggling with dangerously low polio vaccination rates in some communities for years. The U. The polio strains in the shots have been killed, meaning the virus cannot mutate into a more virulent form.
The inactivated polio vaccine is very effective at preventing disease, but it does not stop transmission of the virus. It builds immunity in the bloodstream, which prevents the virus from attacking the spinal cord and causing paralysis. But the inactivated vaccine does not stop the virus from replicating in the gut, which means transmission between people is still possible if there’s an outbreak.
This means that although people immunized in New York with the inactivated polio vaccine are protected against disease, they can still catch and spread the strain that mutated from the oral vaccine. This is likely what’s happening in New York right now, Rosenbauer said.
Poliovirus has been spreading silently in New York communities for months. After the Rockland County patient developed paralysis, health officials in New York used wastewater surveillance developed during Covid to test sewage samples. The earliest positive sewage samples dated back to April in Orange County.
Polioviruses have been found in 69 sewage samples in New York state so far. Skip to content. Business Aug This article tagged under: polio New York wastewater. Back to Article.
Close Menu. Search for:. In rare cases, the virus can cause permanent paralysis, and the disease can turn deadly if that paralysis hits the muscles that control breathing or swallowing. Anyone unvaccinated is at risk of paralytic polio if they get infected. The new worries about polio in the United States are driven by vaccine-derived versions of the virus spreading in areas with low vaccination. Polio vaccines come as a shot, given in the arm or leg, or a liquid given orally.
These vaccines provide protection against wild poliovirus and vaccine-derived poliovirus. The shot is an inactivated vaccine given as part of routine childhood vaccinations in the United States. Kids receive a total of four shots. The inactivated vaccine protects against paralysis. The oral vaccine, still used in many countries, is an attenuated vaccine, made with live but weakened poliovirus. This vaccine can help prevent wild poliovirus from being passed along further if a vaccinated person drinks water or eats food that has been contaminated with stool containing the pathogen.
But because these attenuated versions can replicate, the virus can spread from cell to cell and possibly to other people. Which leads us to the next question. These viruses are related to the oral vaccine. The problem comes when an attenuated virus from the oral vaccine spreads among too many people and regains its ability to cause paralysis, says Adam Lauring, a virologist and infectious diseases physician at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.