US officially added to WHO list of countries affected by poliovirus outbreak

A A Pakistani health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child during an immunization campaign in Karachi on December 10, 2018. Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic. >Enlarge / A Pakistani health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child during an immunization campaign in Karachi on December 10, 2018. Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic . Getty | RIZWAN TABASSUM </figure><p>The United States, one of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world, has met the World Health Organization's criteria to be on the list of countries with circulating poliovirus-derived of a vaccine, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced. Tuesday.</p> <p>The United States now joins the ranks of approximately 30 other countries affected by the polio epidemic, mostly low- and middle-income, including Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia and Yemen. Notably, the list includes only two other high-income countries, the United Kingdom and Israel, which have detected the circulation of a strain of poliovirus genetically related to the one spreading in the United States.</p> <p>Specifically, the United States has met the WHO list criteria by documenting a patient with vaccine-derived poliovirus and having at least one environmental sample of vaccine-derived poliovirus. In July, Rockland County health officials in New York reported a case of paralytic polio in an unvaccinated resident who had not traveled recently. Since then, New York officials and the CDC have been monitoring the spread of the virus in sewage, finding 57 positive samples from four New York counties and New York City. Dates of positive samples range from April to recent sampling in August.</p> <p>Inclusion on the WHO list of polio outbreaks is a new low point for the United States. On the one hand, it reinforces a key global public health message in the campaign to completely eradicate this virus, which is that

The vast majority of the American population is vaccinated against poliomyelitis and well protected against this dangerous disease. The CDC recommends that children receive three doses of the inactivated polio vaccine at 24 months, followed by a fourth dose between ages 4 and 6. But vaccination rates have dropped in recent years, and small pockets of states and counties may have incredibly low coverage. For example, in Rockland County, just northeast of New York, the vaccination rate for 2-year-olds was 67% in 2020, but has slipped to 60% now. And according to ZIP code-level vaccination data, one area in Rockland County has a vaccination rate as low as 37%, with a few others in the 50s.

Vaccination challenges

Polio is a particularly big target for anti-vaccine misinformation. Much of the poliovirus currently circulating in the world today, including the United States, is derived from oral vaccines, which use live and weakened polioviruses to boost immunity. Oral polio vaccines are highly effective in protecting against paralytic polio and are safe and affordable. But, if used in areas with low vaccination rates, harmless and immunizing vaccine viruses can spread to others due to poor sanitation and/or hygiene. If the vaccine continues to move from person to person, it may pick up mutations along the way that allow it to regain the ability to cause infection and paralytic polio. At this point, the vaccine virus is reclassified as vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV).

Circulation of VDPV has been gobbled up by dangerous anti-vaccine advocates, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his organization, Children's Health Defense, who giddily tout the false claim that polio vaccines cause polio. To be clear, polio vaccines are very effective in preventing polio safely. As always, the lack of vaccination against poliomyelitis causes the outbreak of poliomyelitis...

  Technology   Sep 14, 2022   0   34  Add to Reading List
US officially added to WHO list of countries affected by poliovirus outbreak
A A Pakistani health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child during an immunization campaign in Karachi on December 10, 2018. Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic. >Enlarge / A Pakistani health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child during an immunization campaign in Karachi on December 10, 2018. Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic . Getty | RIZWAN TABASSUM </figure><p>The United States, one of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world, has met the World Health Organization's criteria to be on the list of countries with circulating poliovirus-derived of a vaccine, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced. Tuesday.</p> <p>The United States now joins the ranks of approximately 30 other countries affected by the polio epidemic, mostly low- and middle-income, including Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia and Yemen. Notably, the list includes only two other high-income countries, the United Kingdom and Israel, which have detected the circulation of a strain of poliovirus genetically related to the one spreading in the United States.</p> <p>Specifically, the United States has met the WHO list criteria by documenting a patient with vaccine-derived poliovirus and having at least one environmental sample of vaccine-derived poliovirus. In July, Rockland County health officials in New York reported a case of paralytic polio in an unvaccinated resident who had not traveled recently. Since then, New York officials and the CDC have been monitoring the spread of the virus in sewage, finding 57 positive samples from four New York counties and New York City. Dates of positive samples range from April to recent sampling in August.</p> <p>Inclusion on the WHO list of polio outbreaks is a new low point for the United States. On the one hand, it reinforces a key global public health message in the campaign to completely eradicate this virus, which is that

The vast majority of the American population is vaccinated against poliomyelitis and well protected against this dangerous disease. The CDC recommends that children receive three doses of the inactivated polio vaccine at 24 months, followed by a fourth dose between ages 4 and 6. But vaccination rates have dropped in recent years, and small pockets of states and counties may have incredibly low coverage. For example, in Rockland County, just northeast of New York, the vaccination rate for 2-year-olds was 67% in 2020, but has slipped to 60% now. And according to ZIP code-level vaccination data, one area in Rockland County has a vaccination rate as low as 37%, with a few others in the 50s.

Vaccination challenges

Polio is a particularly big target for anti-vaccine misinformation. Much of the poliovirus currently circulating in the world today, including the United States, is derived from oral vaccines, which use live and weakened polioviruses to boost immunity. Oral polio vaccines are highly effective in protecting against paralytic polio and are safe and affordable. But, if used in areas with low vaccination rates, harmless and immunizing vaccine viruses can spread to others due to poor sanitation and/or hygiene. If the vaccine continues to move from person to person, it may pick up mutations along the way that allow it to regain the ability to cause infection and paralytic polio. At this point, the vaccine virus is reclassified as vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV).

Circulation of VDPV has been gobbled up by dangerous anti-vaccine advocates, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his organization, Children's Health Defense, who giddily tout the false claim that polio vaccines cause polio. To be clear, polio vaccines are very effective in preventing polio safely. As always, the lack of vaccination against poliomyelitis causes the outbreak of poliomyelitis...

What's Your Reaction?

like

dislike

love

funny

angry

sad

wow