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In 1979, US authorities declared that the dreaded disease polio had been eradicated after a successful mass vaccination campaign. But the vociferous anti-vax movement is busy reversing those advances, too. A young adult contracted polio a month ago in Rockland County, a part of New York state notorious for vaccine rejection. The unvaccinated patient is paralyzed but no longer contagious.
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According to doctors, the infection is the result of contact with someone who had been vaccinated with a weakened but active version of the virus. That orally administered vaccine was abolished in the US twenty years ago as a means of protection. It is still used in other countries, especially in Africa. In very rare cases, polio can develop in third parties and that seems to be the case here. Anyone who has been vaccinated is protected against the disease. The search for other possible cases of infection is still ongoing.
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Authorities have not released the patient’s identity, but local sources say it is a young man from the area’s sizable ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. meldt The New York Times.
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Attempts by the United Nations to eradicate polio worldwide have admittedly been very successful in recent decades. The disease is still rare. The mission was ultimately unsuccessful as disparate religious groups in different parts of the world turned against the vaccination campaigns. As a result, there are still high-risk areas where the disease appears.
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