Monday 1 August 2022 11:09 PM New York polio patient, 20, was infected with same strain detected in London ... trends now
America’s first polio patient in nearly a decade was infected with the same strain of the virus as was spotted in Jerusalem and London earlier this year, researchers say.
Testing revealed the Jewish man in his 20s and from Rockland County, New York — who was paralyzed by the disease — caught type 2 vaccine-derived polio virus (VDPV), like that detected in wastewater in the other nations.
It suggests there may be ‘multiple’ transmission chains of the virus circulating globally, polio expert Dr Adam Ratner told DailyMail.com.
Today New York City’s Department of Health confirmed the virus had been detected in wastewater samples taken in Rockland County in early June.
Health officials said this was a warning sign for anyone who has not got vaccinated against polio, once the most feared disease in America, to do so. Polio is more dangerous in children.
Testing revealed the patient was infected with the same strain that had been detected in London and Jerusalem earlier this year (file photo)
Testing at labs run by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) revealed that the New York patient had caught the same strain identified this year.
Some countries — but not the U.S. — still use an oral poliovirus vaccine. This uses a live form of the virus which, in rare cases, can be passed on to others when recipients excrete it. Over several infections it may then mutate to become like the more dangerous ancestral strains.
GPEI officials said more analysis was underway to determine where else in the world the virus may have spread to.
They said: ‘It is vital that all countries, particularly those with a high volume of travel and contact with polio-affected countries and areas, strengthen surveillance in order to rapidly detect any new virus importation and to facilitate a rapid response.’
The American polio patient revealed last month is a young Jewish man who had not got the three-dose polio vaccine, reports suggest.
He has since been discharged from hospital to a house he shares with his wife and parents. But paralysis from the infection has left him struggling to walk again.
It was not clear how he caught the virus but the man has not recently traveled abroad, suggesting he likely picked it up from another un-vaccinated individual.
Ratner, who is also the director of pediatric infectious diseases at NYU Langone's Hassenfel Children's Hospital, warned that based on the detections abroad: 'It is possible that each of those was one chain where [infection] happened. But it is also possible that there are multiple independent vaccine-derived polios around.
'Although, in the U.S. this is unlikely because we don't use the oral polio vaccine.'
Neither London or Jerusalem have confirmed a polio patient being admitted to their hospitals so far. The U.S. is yet to detect a second case.
But all three say they have detected the type 2 VDPV in their wastewater within the last few months, suggesting it is spreading in the community.
In Rockland county, the virus was detected in early June — before the first case was reported.
But Ratner said this was 'not surprising' because it can take weeks for someone with the virus to start suffering symptoms.
He added: 'I think it suggest many more people may have been exposed to polio.
'There may be some number who were unvaccinated who came into contact with it but didn't go on to develop paralytric
