The discovery that polio has partially paralyzed The young man in upstate New York feeling tired, but very shocked. Tired, because it’s the third most infectious virus to hit the US by surprise in three years, after monkey pox and SARS-CoV-2. And shocking because for decades, polio hasn’t spread in wealthy nations, where sanitation, vaccinations, and solid public health funding are supposed to keep populations safe. body. Transmission was eliminated in the US in 1979, all of the Americas in 1994, and in the UK in 2003. There, however, in wastewater of the county in which the young man lived and a neighboring county, in New York City, and in London.
Of course, polio exists in other parts of the world. One global campaign to kill the virus that has been in that grueling job since 1988. Last year, the polio virus caused paralysis – which cannot be treated or cured – in two countries that have never been eliminated, and 21 Other countries have flared up again.
However, epidemic experts are not surprised to see it reappear in Western countries. For years, they’ve watched as protection against the disease is weakened by funding cuts, vaccine hesitancy, forgetfulness — and the virus’s evil nature. “This should be a wake-up call for everyone,” said Heidi Larson, professor and founder of the Vaccine Belief Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “We’ve been told that until we can completely eliminate this problem, we’re all at risk.”
Public health experts consider this an emergency, because cases of polio represent the tip of the immunological iceberg: For every person paralyzed, at least a few hundred others are likely to be affected. asymptomatic infection, which serves as a refuge for the virus to self-replicate and transmit disease. That takes time. Sewage findings suggest circulating polio may Since Feb in London, and at least months in New York.
This sense of urgency is why London health authorities have provide booster dose vaccines for any child 9 years of age or younger and why their partners are in New York City — where 40 percent of children in some unvaccinated zip codes — yes urge parents to bring children in. Daniel Pastula, a physician and associate professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus who studies neurology, said: “The number one way to prevent polio is to get vaccinated against the polio virus and the vaccine. This beet is more than 99% effective in preventing polio. – Invasive diseases. “If you have not been immunized, or your child has not been vaccinated against polio, and the polio virus is circulating in your community, you are at risk of developing polio.”
To understand how polio ended in these cities, let’s review a bit of history. In fact, there are two histories: one about the polio vaccine and the other about how it was deployed to drive the disease out of the world.
Start with the vaccine formula — or formula, actually, because there are two types. They were born out of fierce competition in the mid-20th century between scientists Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin. Salk’s formulation, the first to be approved, was injected; it uses an inactivated version of the virus and protects against developing disease, but does not prevent transmission of the virus. Sabin’s recipe, released a few years later, used a live virus artificially weakened. It prevents transmission, and – because it is a liquid that is sprayed into a child’s mouth – it is cheaper to produce and easier to distribute, as it does not require trained medical personnel. or handle needles carefully. Those qualities made Sabin an oral version, known as OPV, the bulwark to control polio, and eventually became the main weapon in the global eradication campaign.
