NEW YORK (AP) — An unvaccinated young adult from New York recently contracted polio, the first U.S. case in nearly a decade, health officials said Thursday.
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Officials said the patient, who lives in Rockland County, had developed paralysis. The person developed symptoms a month ago and did not recently travel outside the country, county health officials said.
It appears the patient 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.
The person is no longer deemed contagious, but investigators are trying to figure out how the infection occurred and whether other people were exposed to the virus.
Most Americans are vaccinated against polio, but this should serve as a wake-up call to the unvaccinated, said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Brown University pandemic researcher.
“This isn’t normal. We don’t want to see this,” Nuzzo said. “If you’re vaccinated, it’s not something you need to worry about. But if you haven’t gotten your kids vaccinated, it’s really important that you make sure they’re up to date.”
Health officials scheduled vaccination clinics in New York for Friday and Monday, and encouraged anyone who has not been vaccinated to get the shots.
“We want shots in the arms of those who need it,” Rockland County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert said at a Thursday news conference.
Polio was once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, with annual outbreaks causing thousands of cases of paralysis. The disease mostly affects 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 have brought polio infections into the U.S. The last such case was in 2013, when a 7-month-old who had recently moved to the U.S. from India was diagnosed in San Antonio, Texas, according the federal health officials. That child also had the type of polio found in the live form of vaccine used in other countries.
There are two types of polio vaccines. The U.S. and many other countries use shots made with an inactivated version of the virus. But some countries where polio has been more of a recent threat use a weakened live virus that is given to children as drops in the mouth. In rare instances, the weakened virus can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks.
U.S. children are still routinely vaccinated against polio with the inactivated vaccine. 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.
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.
This is why we need a population of well educated people who understand how things work and what to do. Not a bunch if Shprinteze who get their information from Dr. Google.
Scoffers , read carefully . The United States does not give live vaccine anymore . We can’t get sick from the vaccine .
Either some of the commenters don’t know how to read or they read what they want to read.
“YOU SEE? IT’S FROM THE VACCINE! DON’T GET THE VACCINE!” they yell.
Read it again: an UNVACCINATED person contracted polio from someone vaccinated with a vaccine that is not given in the United States. This would not happen to a vaccinated person.
Recommending that people should not get the polio vaccine because of what happened to this Rockland County resident is dangerous and downright stupid.
No need for vaccines. Just. use leeches, cups and hydroquakazine for the family. Then swing a chicken over your head for good measure.
Every time a Goy says to me, “I respect Jews because they’re so smart and educated.” I take out my phone and say, “Let me show you something. Yes, in 2022 America (despite Jews leading the push for its eradication) there are Jews stricken with Polio. You still think so highly of us?”
And they quietly walk away.
We Yidden are smart people, as out IQ is one of the highest among groups of people. However, we have an ARROGANCE within us that makes us think we know everything, even knowing better than the best doctors in the world. Guys sitting in the shuls and mikvahs deciding medical problems – without ever opening a medical book or even a simple medical journal.
This arrogance stems from being smart – it is a two edged sword, it is very dangerous. The best example is many people and Rabbonim did not bothering to ask experts if Europe is dangerous in 1939. They decided decided themselves as we are know-all’s.
Nothing changes from generation to generations – Arrogance is here to stay
Of course, in the good old days the UK & the US used to give tests to people coming from areas where these sorts of diseases were rife but, in the UK at least, this was deemed racist by the left because it occured more often in black/Asian people…it never occurred to them that, as many of these came from areas where the diseases were rampant, the only way to keep the disease erradicated here was to stop people entering the country without picking up the cases at the point of entry & treating them before allowing them to join the general population.
I shake my head in utter amazement. The pagans have won. Pagans seek control over mind and body, just study paganism as in Inca, Aztec, Druid, and the like. We have met the enemy and he is us, intones Pogo the sage.
Is the person who has it a hasid?
I am somewhat educated in sciences. both mentioned cases appear to have derived from live vaccine given to people in other countries. paging bill Gates!!!
There are countries that want to have Bill gates charged with criminal behavior because of his vaccine programs leaving many paralyzed in its wake.
Listen to what you are saying. He got it from someone who got the vaccine!! And everyone go get vaccinated!
This is terrible. We must lockdown all Yeshivos and Shuls immediately! Vinishmartem.
Polio was deceptively allowed to be redefined and renamed at the time of the vaccine campaign, which then creating disappearing cases that were no longer categorized as ‘polio myelitis’. There were many with adverse effects from not only the ‘dead’ Salk polio vaccine then, but also afterward from the ‘weakened’ oral Savin versions – aside from the Cutter Labs incident where the ‘dead’ virus ‘somehow’ became alive again.
Other narratives consider the cause of polio to be from DDT, which is still not prohibited in India and several other countries.
Vaccines are theory and have never been proven. Not effective for polio. Not for smallpox. Not for measles. Not for anything else except corporate profits and government control of the population.
New York is one of only a few states (all of these are democratically led) that only allow home schooling for anyone non-vaccinating, which is not being protested actively enough as it is anti-democratic and tyrannical.