Uh-Oh! New York Records First US Polio Case In Nearly 10 Years

Most of us thought this was a thing of the past but to my surprise a case of polio has been detected in New York State. It's the first case of polio in almost ten years but it's not that close to Broome County.

First Case Of Polio In New York In Almost 10 Years

The person lives north of New York City In Rockland County and is no longer considered contagious but has paralysis.  According to the CDC, the person contracted a stain of polio most likely from an oral polio vaccine, which isn't given in the US anymore.

So is polio returning or is this an outlier? The United States has been polio-free since 1979 and this is the first case in New York since 2013. There is no cure for polio, but it is preventable with a vaccination.

The United States has been polio-free since 1979, thanks to a successful vaccination program. Vaccinations have become a hot button issue for the past few years but the polio vaccine has been around since 1955.

Get our free mobile app

The can be brought into our country by travelers with polio but the last time that this happened was in 1993. By the way, the person from New York wasn't vaccinated against polio. The poliovirus is still a threat in some countries and it'll be interesting to see what might happen next. 

Most of us aren't old enough to remember this but at one time, polio was one of the most feared disease in the United States. In the early 50s, the polio outbreaks caused more than 15,000 cases of paralysis every year.

After the polio vaccines became available, the number of polio cases fell to fewer than 100 in the 60s and less than 10 in the 1970s. I'm not making this into a vaccination issue, I'll leave that for others to debate.