The presence of the polio virus in the city’s sewage indicates possible local circulation of the virus, New York City and State health departments said. The State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett said the detection of the polio virus in sewage samples in New York City is alarming but not surprising. “The risk to New Yorkers is real, but the defense is so simple – get vaccinated against polio,” said New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan, in a statement. “With polio circulating in our communities, there is nothing more essential than vaccinating our children to protect them from this virus, and if you are an unvaccinated or under-vaccinated adult, choose to get vaccinated now. Polio is completely preventable and its re-emergence should be a call to action for us all.” New York City is forced to deal with polio as city health officials struggle to vaccinate vulnerable populations against monkeypox and adapt to changing COVID-19 guidelines. “We’re dealing with a trifecta,” Mayor Eric Adams said Friday on CNN. “Covid is still very much here. Polio, we have detected polio in our sewage and we are still dealing with the monkey pox crisis. But the team is there. And we’re coordinating and dealing with threats as they come before us, and we’re ready to deal with them with the help of Washington, DC.” The announcement about the discovery of the polio virus in New York comes shortly after British health authorities said they had found evidence that the virus had spread in London, but found no human cases. Children aged 1-9 in London were eligible for booster doses of polio vaccine on Wednesday. In New York, one person was paralyzed weeks ago from a polio infection in Rockland County, north of the city. Sewage samples collected in June in both Rockland and neighboring Orange County were found to contain the virus. Most people infected with polio do not have symptoms, but they can pass the virus to others for days or weeks. Vaccination offers strong protection and authorities urged people who have not had the shot to seek it immediately. Based on past cases, it’s possible hundreds of people in the state may have contracted polio and not know it, officials said. Polio was once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, with annual outbreaks causing thousands of cases of paralysis. The disease mainly affects children. Vaccines became available starting in 1955, and a national vaccination campaign reduced the annual number of cases in the U.S. to fewer than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A small percentage of people with polio suffer from paralysis. The disease is fatal for 5-10% of those paralyzed. All students in New York must get a polio vaccine, but Rockland and Orange counties are both known as centers of vaccine resistance.
