Poliomyelitis virus was discovered in the sewage of the suburbs of New York. Health officials say that the virus was already in the sewage a month before the case of the disease was recorded in the city.
The BBC writes about it.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the presence of polio in New Yorkʼs sewage indicates that likely other patients are shedding the virus in their feces.
The last time this disease was recorded in the USA was in 2013. In the 20th century, the country had an epidemic of polio, but thanks to a vaccination campaign from 1955 to 1979, the incidence fell to almost zero.
It is noted that the patient from Rockland County who was diagnosed with the disease was not vaccinated. He probably came into contact with a person who received a vaccine containing a live attenuated virus.
Laboratory tests showed that the strain in his case was genetically related to the strain found in Israel, as well as to samples of the virus in Great Britain.
Last month, health officials in the United Kingdom announced that the virus that causes polio had been found in a large number of sewage samples in London.
The head of the health department of New York, Mary Bassett, urged Americans of any age to be vaccinated against poliomyelitis.
"Given how quickly polio can spread, now is the time for every adult, parent and caregiver to vaccinate themselves and their children," she said.
- Poliomyelitis is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. The virus spreads from person to person most often through feces and saliva, contaminating hands, food, and water. Every unvaccinated person — both an adult and a child — can get polio. But children under the age of five are most susceptible to the poliomyelitis virus. The course of the disease is characterized by damage to the central nervous system, the occurrence of paralysis. The disease can lead to death.