New York reports 1st US polio case
The first U.S. person infected with wild polio virus since 1999
has been diagnosed in New York State, officials said Thursday.
The patient was among several people who were exposed at a
restaurant in Brooklyn last week, according to New York City Health
Commissioner Dr. Ox iris Barbet. The exposure occurred after an employee fell
ill with diarrhea, she told reporters on Wednesday.
The Department of Public Health notified local health
departments across the city about the incident, which prompted a series of
events that included testing and contact tracing, the department said in a
statement. Officials have contacted 454 people who may have had contact with
the sick worker and are monitoring them for symptoms.
No additional cases have been diagnosed, the department said.
Officials are working to eradicate polio, which causes
irreversible paralysis in children, by vaccinating children under 5 years old
and immunizing adults over 19 on the recommendation of two consecutive negative
tests.
There have been no reported cases of wild type 2 (WPV-2) polio,
which normally affects young children, in the United States since 1988, when a
vaccine was approved to prevent the disease. There was a single case identified
in Nebraska in 2011.
The last known WPV-2 outbreak was in Nigeria in July 2012 until
May 2013, when three cases were detected in India and Pakistan.
Since 2000, there have been only five countries where WPV-2 has
been found in the wild -- Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Syria and Papua New Guinea.
Polio remains endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and
India, according to the World Health Organization's global polio eradication
initiative.
Polio is caused by a virus that spreads through the oral route
via fecal matter. Children under 5 years old are particularly vulnerable to
contracting the infection, which results in permanent paralysis in 20 percent
of those affected, according to WHO.
In October 2013, Nigeria became the latest country to make the
switch to using oral vaccines instead of the inject able version to prevent
wild polio transmission.
New York State Department
of Health (NYSDOH) confirmed a case of poliovirus type 3 in Westchester County,
New York, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This is the first reported case of human-to-human transmission of paralytic
polio virus since 1999, officials said.
The disease was transmitted from a person who had recently
returned from Pakistan, where cases of wild poliovirus infection have been
detected since late 2014, NYSDOH said. Officials believe the patient contracted
wild poliomyelitis while traveling abroad.
Polio is a highly infectious viral disease caused by a virus
that attacks the nervous system. Symptoms of polio usually appear between 2 and
8 weeks after exposure to the virus. In rare instances, people infected with
polio may go on to develop paralysis years later.
Cases of wild polio were last seen in the United States in 1979,
and none have been identified in humans since 2001. However, the World Health
Organization (WHO) still lists polio as endemic in certain parts of Nigeria and
Afghanistan.
NYSDOH said the affected individual is recovering at home,
though he remains hospitalized pending further testing to determine whether he
requires additional treatment. No information about his travel history or
vaccination status was available.
CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told reporters that if the condition
worsens, the patient could require intensive care and even intubation to assist
breathing. He advised anyone who recently traveled internationally to contact
their doctor immediately.
Wild poliovirus occurs primarily in developing countries that
lack adequate immunization programs, and outbreaks often occur in overcrowded
areas. Since 2013, there has been a steady rise in the number of cases
worldwide.
Global health experts have expressed concern over the resurgence
of polio since 2000, especially among children under 5 years old in Africa. In
2016, WHO declared that India, Nigeria, and Pakistan had been free of wild
poliovirus transmission for several months.
In March 2019, the WHO said that the global incidence of wild
poliovirus infections had fallen below its target of “no more than 1 case per
million populations annually”.
According to the WHO, there were 377 cases of wild polioviruses
in 2018, compared with 466 cases in 2017. Of those, only 10 percent were fatal.
Polio vaccines have prevented more than 350 million deaths
around the world since they were introduced in 1955.
There are no treatments for polio. Symptoms include fever,
headache, muscle pain and weakness, stiff neck, difficulty swallowing, blurred
vision, loss of balance and confusion, sometimes followed by stiffness in the
limbs and, rarely, paralysis of the legs and arms.
