Story at-a-glance
- The New York health department is urging residents to get vaccinated against polio after the virus was found in wastewater samples from two different counties
- In June 2022, a 20-year-old in Rockland County was diagnosed with vaccine-derived poliovirus paralysis. The patient had not been vaccinated against polio
- Many developing countries still use an oral polio vaccine that contains live virus, which then spreads to others in the community. When vaccination rates are low, the spread of vaccine-poliovirus can cause the virus to mutate back into a paralytic form
- The U.S. uses only inactivated injectable polio vaccine that does not spread communally. The inactivated polio vaccine prevents paralysis, but not infection. So, even those who have received the inactivated version can be infected by a vaccine-derived poliovirus, and can spread it to others
- Almost all modern-day polio cases are caused by the vaccine strains. India’s polio eradication campaign in 2011 caused 47,500 cases of vaccine-induced polio paralysis — a condition that is twice as deadly as wild polio
As if the ongoing pandemics of COVID-19 and monkeypox aren’t enough, the New York health department is now urging residents to get vaccinated against polio, as the virus has been found in wastewater samples from two different counties.
