NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — The polio case discovered in Rockland County last month remains the only confirmed case of the virus despite polio being found in wastewater for months, the CDC said Tuesday.
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On July 21, health officials in New York announced the virus was confirmed in an unvaccinated man in his 20s. The man presented with typical polio symptoms, including partial paralysis, and follow-up testing found it was indeed polio.
Shortly after, officials said wastewater samples from Rockland and Orange counties showed traces of the virus as far back as April. Last week, New York also said the virus was in the wastewater.
On Tuesday, the CDC said the case was only the second confirmed community transmission of polio in the country since 1979 and the first of vaccine-derived polio virus type 2 (VPDV2).
It remains unclear where the man got the virus, though the CDC said there seems to be some indication of where it started.
"Because the patient had not traveled internationally during the potential exposure period, detection of VDPV2 in the patient’s stool samples indicates a chain of transmission within the United States originating with a person who received a type 2-containing oral polio vaccine (OPV) abroad; OPV was removed from the routine immunization schedule in the United States in 2000," the CDC said. "Genome sequence comparisons have identified a link to vaccine-related type 2 polioviruses recently detected in wastewater in Israel and the United Kingdom."
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