NEW HAVEN, Conn. — First it was measles, then came COVID, then monkeypox, now - polio.
The infectious disease that was largely eradicated for decades has now surfaced again in New York City. Health officials are sounding the alarm after a person tested positive for polio. They say it may be just the tip of the iceberg.
Every day about 100,000 people travel between CT and NYC. Many of them commute by train. Doctors say this is how polio would most likely get into CT. That is, if it isn’t already here. “Polio spreads really quickly and it spreads very quietly,” said Dr. Howard Forman, an infectious disease expert at the Yale School of Medicine.
For every one person paralyzed by polio, about 100 more may be infected and not even know it. Dr. Forman told FOX61 that about 75% of people won’t develop any symptoms. “Polio will spread in communities that are under-vaccinated,” added Dr. Forman. “Connecticut is pretty good on average, but not great.”
The long eradicated disease that crippled President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has made a resurgence. Some state lawmakers are pointing the finger squarely at the unvaccinated. “We should not be talking about polio in the year 2022,” remarked State Senate majority leader Bob Duff.
The polio vaccine is required to attend public school in Connecticut and just over a year ago, state lawmakers, seeing a rise in measles cases, took action by eliminating what some say was an abused religious exemption. “Anti-vaxers were exploiting the non-medical exemptions in Connecticut and therefore we saw vaccination rates going down,” said Sen. Duff. “We have a small but vocal minority of anti-vaxers who spread misinformation about vaccines.”
But it may not be fair to draw a straight line between the unvaccinated and the polio outbreak. There are rare reports of vaccine-derived polio infection. This is when a person who has been vaccinated with the live but attenuated virus via the oral vaccine develops a polio infection that can be transmitted. Although, it would only be spread to an unvaccinated person, and the oral polio vaccine hasn’t been used in the United States since 2000.
Rachel Schulder is from New York. She was on her way to Boston via Union Station in New Haven. She said, “Yes people are talking about it…There is a deep remorse that people yet again are not following the science but are falling prey to apprehension about taking vaccines that have been proven time and time again to be effective.”
Doctors say as long as you're vaccinated, there’s zero reason for travelers to worry. “Polio vaccination is essentially 100% protective against paralytic polio,” explained Dr. Forman. Currently, the CDC advises that children get vaccinated with a four-dose regimen at two, four and six months of age with a booster dose between the ages of four and six years old.
The Connecticut Department of Health said they are talking with healthcare providers about stressing the importance of vaccination. In a statement they said, “Diseases like polio - while rare at the present time - are not going away. Vaccines are one of the greatest public health tools we have at keeping people healthy.”
The last time a person in Connecticut had polio was back in 1972. Dr. Forman said the only way we would know if it’s circulating here in Connecticut is to test the wastewater. Connecticut is conducting sewage surveillance for COVID, but it’s not clear if they’ve set up that program for polio.
Matt Caron is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at mcaron@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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