A case of polio detected in the United States for the first time since 2013

This is a first in the US since 2013: One person in New York State tested positive for polio, according to health officials.

The patient, who was not vaccinated, experienced the first symptoms about a month ago and is now suffering from partial paralysis, according to CNN.

Non-vaccinees urged to do so

According to a statement, his case indicates “a chain of transmission from an individual who has received oral polio vaccine (OPV)”. A type of vaccine that has not been used in the country since 2000, which assumes that the origin of the virus would come “from a place outside the United States where OPV is administered.” The patient, who has not traveled recently, may have been infected by someone who has returned from abroad.

Officials have asked doctors to monitor potential new cases, and residents of Rockland County, 30 miles (48 km) north of Manhattan, to be vaccinated if they don’t already.

A disease gone… reappearing?

Particularly affecting children under 5 years of age, poliomyelitis is an extremely infectious disease caused by poliovirus, which can cause paralysis. There is no cure, but, thanks to a large vaccination campaign, it has been virtually eradicated from the face of the globe, with cases having declined by 99% since 1988, when polio was still endemic in 125 countries.

But this new US case calls for caution, given that the World Health Organization (WHO) warned last month that a type of vaccine-derived poliovirus had been detected in sewage samples from London. As early as last May, a case of polio had been recorded in Mozambique, two years after the WHO had declared the entire African continent free of the disease.