amna: Polio had been considered
eliminated from the U.S. Since
1979, when the last known case
of the original strain of the
polio virus was detected.
And around the globe, a
successful vaccination campaign
has decreased cases by 99.9%.
But now, the virus seems to be
gaining a foothold once again in
countries that thought they were
free of it.
William brangham has our look.
William: That's right.
In the past few months, polio
has re-emerged in the western
hemisphere.
Eight cases have been detected
in Israel this year and the
virus has been found in London
wastewater.
Now it is back here in the
United States as well.
In July, an unvaccinated man in
rockland county, New York was
infected and paralyzed by this
preventable, but incurable
virus.
Sewage samples taken in New York
City show the polio virus had
likely already been spreading
for months.
To discuss, I am joined by Dr.
Yvonne Maldonado, she's chair of
the American academy of
pediatric's committee on
infectious diseases and
professor of pediatrics at
Stanford.
Great to have you back on the
newshour.
We have this one case of an
unvaccinated man in New York
getting polio and developing
paralysis.
And there is evidence that it is
circulating in New York's
wastewater.
Help us understand the context.
How troubling are those
examples?
Dr. Maldonado: It is concerning.
I think people who are
vaccinated should not be
concerned, but those who are
unvaccinated, this is a real red
flag.
The reason is that we have not
seen polio in the United States
since the 1970's and 80's and
polio was declared eliminated
from the western hemisphere in
1984.
The fact that we are starting to
see not only a case of paralytic
disease, but polio in the
wastewater is really concerning
for ongoing community
transmission.
And people who are unvaccinated
are at risk for developing
paralysis.
William: As you mentioned, there
is this good vaccine, almost
every kid in America has to get
it to go to public school.
We are seeing this spread in
communities where the
vaccination rates are not so
high.
The his seated jewish community
in upstate New York, in
particular.
Is that a problem?
Do you understand why those
communities have such low rates?
Dr. Maldonado: We don't know the
particulars of this particular
county, but we do know the rates
are low.
We don't know why.
But we do know this is a
community that had a sustained
measles outbreak a few years
ago.
And a lot of thought was really
do to lower vaccination rates.
By the way, in general, around
the country, since the covid
pandemic, have seen some pockets
of under vaccination around the
country.
Not clear why that is.
Perhaps people just never were
able to get out to their
providers to get their vaccines
during the shutdown's.
But it is time to think about
getting children and young
adults vaccinated if they are
not up-to-date.
Dr. Maldonado: Given that most
of the country does have pretty
decent coverage, is it your
sense that we should expect
cases to go up nationwide or
not?
Dr. Maldonado: I do think that
this could mean that we might
have sporadic outbreaks.
It is a real lesson for us to
remember to check on our
immunizations for our children.
And for adults as well.
This vaccine is available for
all ages.
But I am not worried, because
most of the country has high
vaccination rates.
These vaccines work, presumably
for life.
We generally don't need
boosters.
But there may be pockets around
the country of individuals who
have low vaccination rates.
In those populations, I would be
particularly concerned.
William: Shifting to what is
happening elsewhere in the
world, we came so close in so
many nations to eradicating this
virus.
But there has been some
faltering in that in polio, and
it has -- it is getting his
foothold again.
.
What is driving that globally?
Dr. Maldonado: Back in the
1980's when the world health
organization declared they would
eradicate polio, we had hundreds
of thousands of cases of polio
around the world.
And over those years, what has
happened is we have reduced the
number of polio cases last year
to a handful of cases all around
the world with high levels of
detection capacity.
Only able to find a few cases.
This year, the number is up to
under two dozen cases.
We are still concerned that the
numbers are not gone.
But we are making progress.
The concern now is that with
covid, resources being -- taking
up that time and energy that
needs to continue other
vaccinations, that we will miss
out on our ability to continue
to vaccinate children against
polio.
As time goes on.
One of the concerns from the
global level is that we keep
those vaccination efforts.
That is really the way to
eradicate this disease and make
sure children are safe around
the world.
William: It seems like in an
echo of covid, but equitable
distribution of the vaccine is
an issue here.
Plus, getting people to take
that vaccine when it is
delivered.
Dr. Maldonado: At this point,
what has merely been a problem
around the world, is where you
see pockets of outbreaks, these
are primarily low resourced
countries where they have very
few resources to actually give
out vaccines.
The vaccines themselves are not
highly expensive.
The administration costs and
operational costs may be
substantial for some of these
countries.
Some of these are areas of
conflict where it has been hard
to get people in to get
vaccinated.
We are really trying to make
sure that at the global level,
there are resources put in to
making sure that we can complete
this task.
William: Dr. Yvonne Maldonado,
thank you for being here.
Dr. Maldonado: Thank you.