New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a state of emergency over polio on September 9th 2022 after the virus was detected in the wastewater of yet another county in the New York City area.
The latest detection involved a wastewater sample collected last month in Nassau county on Long Island.
The sample identified in Nassau County was collected in August.
Of the 57 positive samples of concern, 50 samples have been found to be genetically linked to the individual case of paralytic polio among a Rockland County resident.
Of the 50 samples, 31 samples were collected in Rockland County, 13 samples were collected in Orange County, 6 samples were collected in Sullivan County, and 1 sample was collected in Nassau County.
Of the 31 samples identified in Rockland County, 2 were collected in May, 3 were collected in June, 9 were collected in July, and 17 were collected in August.
Of the 12 samples identified in Orange County, 2 were collected in June, 5 were collected in July, and 5 in August.
Of the 6 samples identified in Sullivan County, 2 were collected in July and 4 were collected in August.
7 positive samples of concern, 1 collected in April from Orange County and 2 collected in June and 4 collected in July from New York City have also been identified. While at this time, these samples have not been genetically linked to the individual case in Rockland County, sequencing analysis characterizes these samples as either a vaccine-derived poliovirus (1, collected in New York City in July) or variants of the revertant polio Sabin type 2 poliovirus (6, 3 collected in July and 2 collected in June in New York City; 1 collected in April in Orange County). Both of these types of polioviruses can cause illness, including paralysis, in humans.
