Oral Polio Vaccine Under Consideration as Health Experts Weigh Options Against New York Outbreak

Health officials from the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) are considering the use of the oral polio vaccine in order to fight the recent New York outbreak.

If officials push through with the decision, it would be the first time in 20 years that an oral polio vaccine is used in the region. The recent outbreak in the greater New York City metropolitan area also left an adult paralyzed.

Oral Polio Vaccine

The CDC's team leader for domestic polio, Dr. Janell Routh, said that they were talking with the New York State and New York City colleagues about the use of nOPV. It is a reference to the novel oral polio vaccine.

The oral vaccine that the health agency is considering is a newer form that is found to be more stable and carries less risk of mutation. On Friday, Routh said that it will be a process and noted that it is not something that can be done immediately and have it happen overnight, as per CNBC.

Routh added that there would be a lot of thought and discussion regarding the reintroduction of an oral polio vaccine into the United States. In a statement, the New York State Department of Health said that it was collaborating with the CDC on potential future options to address the recent polio outbreak.

US drug regulators decided to pull the oral vaccine off the shelves in 2000 because it contains a live, but weakened, strain of the virus that can, in rare cases, mutate into a virulent form that is contagious and can potentially paralyze people who are not vaccinated.

According to The Hill, health officials first detected a case of polio in Rockland County, New York, in July. The 20-year-old male patient developed symptoms of the disease, including paralysis, and was found to be unvaccinated.

The Spread of the Virus

In August, one CDC official said that the case could indicate that "several hundred cases" already existed in that community. Around the same time, New York State Health Department officials noted that the CDC had previously detected poliovirus in wastewater surveillance.

Last month, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency in the state after the health department found poliovirus in stool samples in five counties. Many of the people who are infected with the polio virus do not show symptoms but they could put unvaccinated or immunocompromised individuals at risk.

The situation comes as in Malawi, a polio vaccination campaign is protecting millions of children from the disease. Since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, the number of people who die of the disease has dropped by 99.9%.

Malawi has, over the past few decades, illustrated the incredible strides that have been made in the fight against the virus. Until November 2021, the country had gone three decades without a single case of polio.

However, during that month, a three-year-old child who lived in Malawi's capital Lilongwe was reported to have been infected by the disease. The virus affected the patient's nerve cells in her spinal cord and affected her ability to walk, Unicef reported.