The first confirmed case of polio in the United States in a decade has been found in Rockland County, New York.
According to Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, county health commissioner, the unvaccinated young adult first experienced weakness and paralysis approximately a month ago. The incident occurs almost a month after the UK Health Security Agency issued a warning that it had discovered poliovirus in samples of London sewage under its surveillance, suggesting that there had been some spread among people who were closely connected in North and East London, though no cases had been discovered there.
The poliovirus is the infection that results in polio. The flu-like symptoms, such as a sore throat, fever, exhaustion, nausea, headache, and stomach pain, affect about 1 in 4 affected individuals.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up to 1 in 200 people will experience more severe symptoms such as paralysis, an infection of the brain or spinal cord, and tingling and numbness in the legs. Polio has no known treatment. Medication to calm muscles, heat therapy and physical therapy to activate muscles are all possible treatments for symptoms. But whatever paralysis brought on by polio is irreversible.
According to Schnabel Ruppert, the patient did come with weakness and paralysis. According to the New York Department of Health, this is the first case of polio discovered in the country since 2013.
Health officials from the state and county are recommending medical professionals be on the lookout for any new cases and are advising county citizens to get their polio shots. Ruppert Schnabel stated that the risk to an unvaccinated community member from this event is currently being determined. They firmly advise everyone who isn’t immunized to get immunized. The CDC’s recommended immunization regimen includes the polio vaccine, which is necessary for students to attend school. There should be no risk to those who have received their vaccinations.
The oral polio vaccination, which contains a live but weakened form of the polio virus, was the source of the New York case, which was diagnosed as a revertant polio Sabin type 2 virus. Officials claim that this indicates the virus originated outside of the US, where the oral vaccine is still used, but they are currently looking into the specific case’s origins. According to health officials, the patient had not left the country either before or after being diagnosed, they stated on Thursday.
In the past, both in the United States and around the world, polio cases were frequent. The virus infected 58,000 people in the US during one of the worst outbreaks in 1952, paralyzing more than 21,000 people and killing more than 3,100. However, vaccination initiatives significantly reduced cases. In the US, 1979 saw the final instance of polio that occurred spontaneously.
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