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Should you worry about the first U.S. polio case in nearly a decade : NPR


A scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention works with documentation on the polio virus. The first case of polio in nearly a decade was discovered in a New York patient on Thursday. This individual was unvaccinated and likely contracted the virus from an individual outside the country.

James Gathany / CDC


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James Gathany / CDC


A scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention works with documentation on the polio virus. The first case of polio in nearly a decade was discovered in a New York patient on Thursday. This individual was unvaccinated and likely contracted the virus from an individual outside the country.

James Gathany / CDC

New York health officials discovered a case of polio in an adult – First case nationwide since 2013.

The good news is that most people have nothing to worry about. “Unless you haven’t been vaccinated,” says retired GP and polio survivor Marny Eulberg.

The New York State Department of Health said the unvaccinated individual from Rockland County may have contracted the virus from someone outside the country who received the oral polio vaccine, which has not been authorized for use in the United States since 2000.

Additional details about the patient have yet to be released, but Eulberg said the case could have been caused by the oral vaccine, which contains live attenuated strains of the virus.

Over time, this weaker strain of polio can mutate and behave like a more natural version of the virus and spread to unvaccinated people. This is defined as a Vaccine-derived polio virus case. Eulberg says if a person in New York were vaccinated, this wouldn’t have happened.

Most people in the United States have been vaccinated against polio – nearly 93% The CDC says children are up to two years old – because many states require children to be vaccinated against polio to go to school. However, some people get religious exemptions, and some states leave that decision to parents, Eulberg noted.

“Poliosis is an infectious disease caused by a virus that in a small percentage of cases attacks the nerves in the spinal cord to tell the body what to do and then causes paralysis,” she said.

Given the severity of the virus, New York’s Rockland County is appealing to unvaccinated residents to vaccinate and publish clinics for local people to easily do.

Eulberg was infected with polio in 1950 when she was 4 years old – 5 years before a vaccine became available in the United States. She was hospitalized for six months. She said her left leg was paralyzed and she needed a leg brace and crutches to walk for part of her childhood.

By the time she was in high school, she didn’t need braces or crutches anymore because the remaining nerves were compensated for those damaged by the virus. But 35 years later, her condition began to deteriorate.

She explains that about half of polio survivors will experience some degree of paralysis in their lifetime. While there’s no definite answer as to why that happens, the leading hypothesis is that the surviving nerves wear out over time.

“Politics doesn’t recur; we’re not contagious,” Eulberg said. “That’s just what happened to 50% of people with polio in the past and it will happen 20 to 50 years from now.”

Polio has been more or less eradicated globally, but remains in impoverished countries, which struggle with vaccination rates and clean water. Most cases remain In Afghanistan and Pakistan, According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rotary International and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation renewed their partnership in January by pledge up to 450 million dollars to help eradicate the polio virus globally.

Editor’s Note: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of NPR’s financial backers.



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