A case of polio in an unvaccinated man was recently announced in New York state, followed by the discovery of polio in wastewater in New York City. That means a vaccine-preventable disease has re-emerged in the United States, one of the world’s most resource-rich countries, more than 40 years after it was eliminated here.
The combination of lack of vaccine access in some resource-poor countries and vaccine refusal in the U.S. and elsewhere has led to polio arriving alongside the spread of two other major diseases — COVID-19 and monkeypox. These coinciding risks remind us of the urgent need to close gaps in vaccine access and uptake.
The latest evidence suggests that the Rockland County patient developed vaccine-derived paralytic polio from his community, where the virus had presumably been circulating for some time after originating overseas. The story of how that happened starts with the vaccines.
