Health officials have identified the polio virus in New York City’s sewage, they announced Friday, warning that the finding suggests there has been local transmission. For this reason, they have urged the population, especially children, to get vaccinated.
This comes after the first case of polio in the United States in a decade was recorded on July 21 in Rockland County, 20 kilometers north of New York City, in whose metropolitan area it is included. In early August, authorities announced that the virus had been detected in Rockland sewage, which corresponded to one unvaccinated adult male, a month before the case was recorded.
“The New York City Department of Health and the New York State Department of Health have identified poliovirus in the city’s sewage, suggesting local transmission of the virus,” New York City health officials said in a statement. “Polio can cause paralysis and even death. We urge unvaccinated New Yorkers to get vaccinated now.”
Poliovirus was also detected in a significant number of samples taken from London sewage last June. British health authorities this week launched an urgent vaccination campaign targeting almost a million children aged between one and nine in the greater capital area. No cases of the disease have been reported in the UK, and not since 1984. However, due to relatively low vaccination rates in the capital cities where this unusual prevalence of the virus has been recorded, government vaccination advisers have advised extreme caution.
The World Health Organization launched an international public health campaign in 1988 with the goal of eradicating polio by the year 2000, but in 2020 cases were reported in 34 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.