Polio Is Back. Here ’ s How to Keep Yourself Safe

Until recently, polio had been a relic of history in the U.S. Once a scourge that paralyzed or killed up to tens of thousands of children every year, the U.S. declared the disease officially eradicated in 1979, thanks to widespread vaccination. But polio is back. On July 21, the New York State Department of Health announced a case of polio in an unvaccinated man in Rockland County. Poliovirus has since been found in wastewater in both Rockland and neighboring Orange County, as well as in New York City. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The development has led to justified alarm. “Even a single case of paralytic polio represents a public health emergency in the United States,” write a group of researchers in a report published Aug. 16 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The bottom line is that anyone who is not fully vaccinated against the disease should get up-to-date on the shots immediately. Here’s what to know about what polio’s re-emergence in the U.S. means for your health. A brief recent history of polio As recently as 1988, polio was a worldwide menace: endemic in 125 countries and causing an average of 350,000 paralytic or lethal cases each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It was that year that the World Health Assembly established the Global Polio Eradication Initiative with the goal of wiping out the disease, just as smallpox had been officially eradicated in 1980. The means to the end of polio w...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Disease healthscienceclimate Source Type: news