SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — For the first time in nearly a decade, there is a confirmed case of polio in Rockland County.
David Larsen, an environmental epidemiologist and a professor at Syracuse University’s Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, stressed why having the polio vaccine is so important. Because polio has not had many confirmed cases recently and we have been distracted by the likes of Covid-19 and monkeypox, it has not been a topic of worry.
Larsen urges those not vaccinated, mainly children, to be worried until they get the vaccine.
“I am concerned that there is increasing vaccine hesitancy for these childhood illnesses like polio,” Larsen said. “That’s unfathomable this, this idea that we could have polio, paralyzed children after working so hard to eliminate polio transmission from the United States.”
Larsen noted that everyone must obtain the vaccine to eliminate polio completely.
While polio has remerged, and it’s essential to receive the vaccine, Larsen pointed out that polio is much easier to track than Covid-19 due to the wastewater.
Larsen mentions that polio gets detected by using the New York state wastewater surveillance network.
“If you have one infection,” Larsen said, “one infected person produces more polio virus waste than a Covid-infected person, so it is easier to detect.”
