The first case of polio in the United States in a decade was diagnosed Thursday in a Jewish man from Rockland County, upstate New York.
Health officials have announced they will begin a vaccination campaign once morest the potentially deadly virus. They said the victim had never been vaccinated before and suffered from paralysis.
“He’s been released from the hospital,” a source told Archyde.com. Jewish Week on condition of anonymity. “He’s a young adult, in a wheelchair. He got married recently.”
Polio is a highly contagious disease that can cause paralysis and even death. Before an effective vaccine was developed in the early 1950s, tens of thousands of Americans were infected each year. An epidemic in 1952 killed over 3,000 people, mostly children.
In Israel, the return of polio this year was followed by a large vaccination campaign, which reached 96% in July, helping to reduce the disease. The first clinical case of polio in 34 years was discovered in an unvaccinated 4-year-old girl in March. First hospitalized at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, the girl was transferred to a specialized hospital following the virus damaged her muscles.
