Health officials say the new case of polio in New York state and the presence of poliovirus in the municipal wastewater suggests that hundreds more could already be infected with the disease.
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Polio cases in the US, UK and Israel remind us that this could also happen in Australia. Here’s what we should watch out for.
The move follows recent detections of poliovirus in London’s wastewater.
The oral polio vaccine is cheap and effective, but it comes with some risks.
Poliovirus traces in London sewage from February to May suggest ongoing infection
Vaccination campaigns like the ones that eventually eliminated polio and measles in the United States required decades of education and awareness in order to achieve herd immunity in the U.S. population.
Outbreaks of polio have become a thing of the past, told to us by our grandparents, only because of vaccination.
The polio eradication programme in Africa directly combated a severe debilitating disease. But it also provided a platform for broader healthcare services on the continent.
Identifying the emergence of a disease often relies on sick people seeking medical help. Wastewater monitoring can identify pathogens days or weeks earlier.
It brought panic, fear and huge pressure on healthcare. Will we get it wrong again?
A challenge in eradicating polio comes from a version of the vaccine itself, which relies on live but attenuated virus. Rationally designing a new vaccine could help get rid of polio once and for all.
Polio can be circulating through a community long before anyone is paralyzed. Monitoring sewage for the virus lets public health officials short-circuit this ‘silent transmission.’
Pakistan had only eight new diagnoses of polio in 2017. The virus’ days look numbered – but health workers have their work cut out for them to eradicate the devastating disease once and for all.
Top contributors
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Associate Principal Research Fellow, Burnet Institute
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Director, Cochrane South Africa, South African Medical Research Council
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Postdoctoral Researcher, Molecular Biology, University of Leeds
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Assistant Professor, Sam Houston State University
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Research Fellow, American University School of Public Affairs
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Professor Emerita of Biology, Indiana University
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Professor and Chair of Epidemiology, University of Michigan
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Associate Professor of Complex Systems, Epidemiology and Mathematics, University of Michigan
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Assistant Research Scientist in Epidemiology, University of Michigan
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Head, Centre for Vaccines and Immunology, National Institute for Communicable Diseases
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Professor of Medicine, University of East Anglia
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Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in English, University of Bristol
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Associate Professor in Viral Immunology, University of Birmingham
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Professor, food safety, University of Guelph
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Regents' Professor of Clinical Laboratory Science, Texas State University
