According to samples identified in the city’s wastewater, the circulation of the virus could be much higher.
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A case that could hide hundreds of others. The health authorities of New York (United States) are concerned following the identification of a case of poliomyelitis, a highly contagious disease that invades the nervous system and can cause permanent paralysis, July 21. Because according to the samples identified in the wastewater, the circulation of the disease could be much higher and not be limited to a single case, can we read in the Parisian.
“Most cases are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, and these symptoms often go unnoticed”warned on the BBC, Tuesday August 9, Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, the Rockland County Health Commissioner. “So there are hundreds, if not thousands of cases that have occurred for us to see a paralytic case”. It could be “the tip of the iceberg of a potentially much larger spread”warned New York State Health Commissioner Mary Bassett on Thursday, August 4.
It must be said that New Yorkers are poorly vaccinated against polio. Vaccination coverage only reaches 79% across New York State, but only 60% in Rockland County where the first patient was identified, specifies the Ile-de-France daily.
In France, vaccination coverage is close to 100%: “99% for the primary vaccination and 96% for the booster in infants in 2019”according to a point made by Public Health France on June 30, 2022, after a first case was identified in London (United Kingdom), on June 22.