Polio in US, UK and Israel reveals rare risk of oral vaccine
EDITOR’S’NOTE: A man in Rockland County was diagnosed with polio earlier this summer. In August, the NYSDOH and NYCDOHMH identified poliovirus – the stain which causes paralytic polio – in sewage. The virus was first detected in Rockland and Orange Counties. Polio has also been detected in sewers in London, England, and Israel. The strain of poliovirus detected in the sewer system is analyzed to have been vaccine-derived, meaning that the virus mutated from the virus which came from the oral vaccine. The likelihood of mutation occurring is extremely low, and experts say a different polio inoculation regime must be in place. The oral vaccine does not cause polio. In fact, The Netherlands and the Nordic countries never used the vaccine.
For years, global health officials have used billions of drops of an oral vaccine in a remarkably effective campaign aimed at wiping out polio in its last remaining strongholds — typically, poor, politically unstable corners of the world.
Now, in a surprising twist in the decades-long effort to eradicate the virus, authorities in Jerusalem, New York and London have discovered evidence that polio is spreading there.