First Polio Case in Nearly a Decade Is Detected in New York State

NEW YORK – A case of polio has been identified in an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County, according to a news release from the New York State Department of Health and the Rockland County Department of Health on Thursday.

The agencies confirmed that the infection was transmitted from someone who received the oral polio vaccine, which has not been administered in the United States since 2000. Officials believe the virus may have originated outside the United States, where the oral vaccine is still administered.

“I want to stress that this individual is no longer contagious,” said Ed Day, the Rockland County executive, in a news conference Thursday afternoon. “Our efforts now are focused on two issues: vaccinations and figuring out if anyone else has been impacted by this disease.”

The person’s symptoms began about a month ago, said Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, Rockland County’s health commissioner, at the news conference. The patient presented with “weakness and paralysis,” she said, and the department was notified Monday about the confirmed case.

“We are now surveying the family and close contacts of this individual to assess the risk to the community,” Ruppert said. She did not share information about the individual’s current state or prognosis.

Those already vaccinated against polio are at very low risk; those who have had all three shots have close to 100% protection. But those who are unvaccinated or have not completed their vaccination series should get vaccinated, officials said.

The last case of polio in the United States was in 2013, in someone who brought the disease in from abroad. There has not been a case originating in the United States since 1979, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease was one of the most feared in the country until the 1950s, when the first vaccine was developed.

Data on the number of individuals who are vaccinated against polio in Rockland County is not available, said Beth Cefalu, a spokesperson for the county.

However, a regional health assessment reported that about half of children in Rockland County had received all of their routine childhood vaccinations in 2016 by 35 months of age, one of the lowest rates in the region. To achieve herd immunity for polio, the target vaccination rate is 80%, according to the World Health Organization.

In 2018 and 2019, there was a measles outbreak in Rockland County in which more than 150 people were infected with the disease. At the time, local officials kept unvaccinated children from attending schools and barred them from public places.

Polio is very contagious, the Health Department said. People can spread the disease even if they do not have symptoms, which can include fatigue, fever, headache, muscle pain and vomiting. Rarely, polio cases may result in paralysis or death.

The oral vaccine is safe and effective and is still given in countries where vaccine access is more limited. However, people who receive the oral vaccine, which contains a weakened version of the virus, may still shed the virus. If the weakened version of the virus circulates in a population with lower levels of protection from vaccinations, it can “genetically revert to a version that causes paralysis,” according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.