First polio case in US in a decade

The United States has recorded its first case of polio in nearly a decade, Aljazeera reports. This is a young unvaccinated person living in New York State. He had his first symptoms a month ago and is now paralyzed. The patient has not left the country recently. Doctors suggest that he contracted a strain of the virus from a live polio vaccine, which is no longer used in the United States. Most likely, the virus got into the body of the sick person from a person who was vaccinated in another country. Now the victim is no longer contagious, but doctors are looking for other people who could also be infected.

In the past, polio was considered one of the most dangerous diseases. It is believed that they were sick in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. Mostly children were infected, many of whom remained paralyzed. In the middle of the last century, vaccines appeared, and in 1979 polio was declared eradicated in the United States. Since then, single cases of infection have been “brought” from abroad. The last time this happened was in 2013, when a seven-month-old child, whose family had recently moved to the US from India, fell ill in Texas. He also had the type of polio found in the live oral polio vaccine used in other countries.

There are two types of polio vaccines in use around the world. In epidemically prosperous countries like the United States, this is an inactivated polio vaccine. In countries where polio is still a serious threat, live oral polio vaccine is given to children by mouth drops. In rare cases, a weakened virus used in a live vaccine can mutate into a form that can cause new outbreaks.

Polio is transmitted primarily from person to person or through contaminated water. In severe cases, it affects the spinal cord, causing paralysis, disability, and even death.