New York polio case is the 'tip of the iceberg,' hundreds of others could be infected
Source: CNBC
Hundreds could have polio after an adult in the New York City metro area caught the virus and suffered paralysis last month, the state’s top health official said this week. New York state Health Commissioner Mary Bassett warned that the confirmed polio case in an unvaccinated adult, coupled with the detection of the virus in sewage outside the nation’s largest city, could indicate a bigger outbreak is underway.
“Based on earlier polio outbreaks, New Yorkers should know that for every one case of paralytic polio observed, there may be hundreds of other people infected,” Bassett said. “Coupled with the latest wastewater findings, the department is treating the single case of polio as just the tip of the iceberg of much greater potential spread.”
Bassett said it is crucial that children are vaccinated by the time they are 2 months old, and all adults — including pregnant women —who have not received their shots should do so immediately. “As we learn more, what we do know is clear: The danger of polio is present in New York today,” Bassett said.
New York state health officials confirmed last month that an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County had caught polio and was hospitalized with paralysis. Health officials subsequently found three positive polio samples in Rockland County wastewater and four positive samples in the sewage of adjacent Orange County. The sewage samples that tested positive for polio are genetically linked to the strain which the unvaccinated adult caught. The findings do not indicate that the individual who caught polio was the source of transmission, but local spread could be underway, health officials said.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/05/new-york-polio-case-tip-of-iceberg-hundreds-of-others-could-be-infected.html
Full headline: New York polio case is the ‘tip of the iceberg,’ hundreds of others could be infected, health official says
I know the wastewater testing has been ongoing (and is continually expanded) for COVID-19 monitoring but I hope other wastewater monitoring locations are or will start testing for stuff like Polio, which at one time was often attributed to transmission through ingestion of the virus from fecal matter in untreated water (like untreated pools or I expect even those large water fountain displays/sculptures - both of these being popular features used during heatwaves for "cooling off" and the U.S. has certainly been in the heat).
= new reply since forum marked as read
Because right now, IIRC, it's only available through an injection and that right there can slow the process, not just from refusal by the needle-phobic, but due to the prep, handling, and disposal of those needles (usually considered a "bio-hazard" and marked as that in special disposal containers).
Thus squirting vaccine into mouths down a line of folks would get it distributed much quicker and without the screams of needles.
And apparently it may be that the old Eastern Bloc countries are still using the oral AV.
For example per this article regarding Ukraine's reporting of a Polio case last year (and includes an image of a Ukrainian child receiving the oral vaccine back in 2015)- https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/07/ukraine-confirms-case-of-polio-in-18-month-old-toddler
By Emil Filtenborg • Updated: 07/10/2021
Stock picture: A boy receives polio vaccine drops at a clinic in Kyiv, Ukraine, October 21, 2015 - Copyright Credit: Gleb Garanich/REUTERS
Ukraine has confirmed a case of polio. The country's health ministry said it had been found in an 18-month-old toddler in Rivne Oblast, near the border with Belarus.
It said the youngster had been hospitalised with "symptoms of being paralysed".
"The disease is caused by a derivative of the vaccine strain of polioviruses type 2 (Sabin 2)," the health ministry statement read.
"The parents deliberately refused medical vaccinations because of their religious beliefs."
(snip)
Of course as noted, using live (attenuated) virus vaccine is an issue, but it's not just one in Asia or Africa.
and especially in those towns and cities that have been devastated with the bombing, resulting in damaged water/sewage infrastructure.
And then you have a good chunk of the population who initially fled to surrounding countries (with some slowly returning), but then as Russia expands its bombing, you get more and more who are being displaced, and there goes the spread. 
To reinforce, this world does NOT need a MILGA movement. Get the vaccine, its been around since the mid 1950s, so no excuses.
MILGA=Make Iron Lungs Great Again
What other diseases are you going to bring back? 
Over the years, the assumption was that vaccines given in childhood were "lifetime" ones - well at least other than tetanus, that I recall was one they did recommend about every 10 years (and I think that before my travel to Egypt, along with a Polio booster, yellow fever vax, and typhoid vax (which was oral with a series of capsules), I actually got a tetanus booster as well - it's been awhile but I always laughed about the odd circumstances that had me end up getting one of those every 10 years - at least up until 1992 
).
I think at least so far, the reported cases that had been ID'd as Polio, have been in unvaccinated people.
With all these viruses suddenly surfacing (or at least being identified enough to rise above background noise) it will be interesting to see if testing of more viruses will start happening (although there is a cost involved in that).
With respect to Polio - apparently there was a 2-dose initial series back in the day, nowadays a 3-dose series of shots (usually in childhood starting as infants) and then an option for a booster. It's hard if you don't have the old childhood immunization records around but if you haven't been boosted and are nervous, you could go ahead and ask to get boosted. It probably won't be an issue if you can find a provider who has it to give.
don't make Polio great again. Make children vaccinated again.
Thanks BDDS
They believe this case came from a live-attenuated vaccinated population. I don't quite understand the mechanics, but live-attenuated can cause polio in 1/1,000,000 cases and then it can possibly spread to unvaccinated populations.
(I assume the polio case from the vaccinated person is an asymptomatic case)
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23288366/polio-rockland-vaccines-new-york-explainer-eradication
The prevailing thought is that since most of the rest of the world is still using the easy-to-give oral (live virus) type, then that is how it is getting re-introduced. The U.S. stopped giving that and went with the injection of inactivated after ~1997 I think.
I expect it has been circulating for awhile from overseas travelers, but no one was looking for it until that one unvaccinated person experienced paralysis from it in NY. And that is when they started testing the waste water for it (they were already doing regular COVID-19 waste treatment testing) and sure enough, the same genetic profile of the Polio virus that individual had, matched what was in the sewage sheds. Similar has happened in California with monkeypox wastewater testing.
I hope the booster I had 30 years ago still works (needed it to go to Egypt and it was on the traveler immunizaion list along with yellow fever and typhoid)!
I know my mother (who I went with on that trip) was like WTF? although she would NEVER say those words 
) "Why do I need this again?". She was a teen in the '40s when Polio was rampaging around the U.S. and got the vaccine back when it became available in the '50s when she was in her 20s. When we got the booster, we had the oral one (they were just starting to switch to the injection around that time but apparently all the doc had was the oral one).
