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First Polio Case in Nearly a Decade Is Detected in New York State [1]
['Hurubie Meko']
Date: 2022-07-21
The person’s symptoms began about a month ago, said Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, Rockland County’s health commissioner, at the news conference. The patient presented with “weakness and paralysis,” she said, and the department was notified on Monday about the confirmed case.
“We are now surveying the family and close contacts of this individual to assess the risk to the community,” Dr. Ruppert said. She did not share any additional information about the patient’s current state of health or prognosis.
Although the health officials did not reveal the gender of the patient, local elected officials said he is a man from the Orthodox Jewish community. In 2018 and 2019, there was a measles outbreak in Rockland County concentrated among ultra-Orthodox Jewish people, whose vaccination rates have tended to be lower than the broader population. In that outbreak, more than 150 people were infected with the measles.
The last case of polio in the United States was in 2013, in someone who brought the disease in from abroad. There has not been a case originating in the United States since 1979, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/nyregion/polio-case-new-york.html
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