– What we see is only the tip of the iceberg, said a spokesperson for the US health authorities CNN Wednesday.
At the same time, the person in question estimates that there must be at least a hundred examples of the virus circulating in the city.
On Friday, several examples of the virus were found in New York’s sewer systems, suggesting that the virus is spreading.
It writes CNBC.
The state’s health director, Dr. Mary Basset, describes the findings as alarming.
– Local and state health authorities are actively working to find out how much the polio virus has spread in the city and state, she says.
– Great fear
The health authorities have found polio infection in the sewage in seven counties north of New York City. Only one person has been diagnosed with the infection, but there is great fear that the contagious disease is back after many years.
The person who is infected and has developed paralysis is an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County. The person is the first to be diagnosed with polio in several decades in the United States.
According to CNN, Rockland has a very low vaccination rate. Jose Romero of the National Center for Immune and Respiratory Diseases points out that most people infected with the virus probably have no symptoms – and thus can spread the virus without knowing it.
Polio vaccination is mandatory for all children in New York state, but in some areas control is weak. Both Rockland and the neighboring county of Orange are known to have many vaccine opponents, with only about 60 percent vaccinated.
Earlier in the week, British health authorities announced that poliovirus had been found in several places in the British sewage system. Now the authorities fear that the virus will spread.
Get a vaccination offer
All children between the ages of one and nine in England will thus be offered the polio vaccine in the coming weeks, writes the British newspaper The Guardian.
– Since early February, 116 variants of the poliovirus have been found in 19 sewage samples in London, the British health authorities state.
Polio was once one of America’s most feared diseases, but was declared eradicated in 1979, over 20 years after an effective vaccine became available.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Europe polio-free in 2002.
– Highly contagious
According to The pocket doctor Polio is a highly contagious viral disease that can cause severe paralysis.
Most people who become infected have no symptoms, but they can spread the infection for several weeks. A small proportion of those infected become paralyzed, and 10-15 percent of them die.
The virus enters the body through the mouth by eating food that has been prepared by unclean hands, or by coughing, and multiplies in the intestine and can spread from there to other organs, primarily the central nervous system.
There is no treatment, but the vaccine is considered to be very effective.
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