(2022-09-22) With Polios Return Heres What Backtoschoolers Need To Know

With polio's return, here's what back-to-schoolers need to know Before polio vaccines became available in the 1950s, people wary of the disabling disease were afraid to allow their children outside, let alone go to school

Most people infected with poliovirus don't get sick and won't have symptoms.

So, as with covid-19, people who don't have symptoms can unknowingly spread it as they interact with others

The virus that causes polio spreads through the "oral-fecal route," which means it enters the body through the mouth by way of the hands, water, food, or other items contaminated with poliovirus-containing feces

The CDC recommends that all children be vaccinated against polio at ages 2 months, 4 months, 6 to 18 months, and 4 to 6 years, for a total of four doses. All 50 states and the District of Columbia require that children attending day care or public school be immunized against polio, but some states allow medical, religious, or personal exemptions.

in some areas the vaccination rates are dangerously low, such as New York's Rockland County, where it is 60%, and Yates County, where it is 54%, because so many families there claim religious exemptions.

Why is polio spreading again?

The World Health Organization declared North and South America polio-free as of 1994, but in June 2022, a young adult living in Rockland County, New York, was diagnosed with serotype 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus.

Poliovirus genetically linked to the Rockland County case has been detected in wastewater samples from Rockland, Orange, Sullivan and Nassau counties, demonstrating community spread as far back as May 2022.

Wild poliovirus serotypes 2 and 3 have been eradicated. Wild poliovirus serotype 1, the most virulent form, remains endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but vaccine-derived polioviruses continue to circulate in some countries in Africa and other parts of the world.