LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Rotary International has been fighting the war against polio since 1979, starting in the Philippines with the goal of immunizing six million children. In 1988, when Rotary International and the World Health Organization launched the Global Polio Eradication initiative, there were an estimated 350K cases of polio in 125 countries.

Over the years, the Rotary’s vaccination efforts, with help from organizations all over the globe, and their work to provide access to uncontaminated drinking water, have made a significant difference in reducing the number of polio cases. Their work had been very successful and the virus’ existence has resulted in being geographically restricted to limited areas.

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Bill Gates has said about the polio eradication efforts, “The world’s progress in fighting polio might be one of the best-kept secrets in global health.”

Fast forward to more recent times and we find that polio has been detected once again in the United States, the UK (London) and Israel, with an increase of cases in Pakistan.

Aidan O’Leary, Director of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) at the World Health Organization (WHO), said about the situation: “90 percent of global media attention has been on the polio emergence in New York, London and Israel. However, 90 percent of actual cases are in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, northern Yemen and northern Nigeria.”

Poliovirus (polio), according to the Rotary’s website, is a highly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of five. It’s spread person-to-person, typically through contaminated water. It can attack the nervous system and in some cases lead to paralysis. There is no cure but there’s a safe and effective vaccine which was developed by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1955. Rotary, along with their partners, have immunized more than 2.5 billion children worldwide in 122 countries.

The polio virus was detected in wastewater in Rockland County, New York in July of 2022. Then it was found in Nassau County on Long Island, east of the NYC. In the UK, the virus was detected in samples taken between February and May of this year. And in Jerusalem city, polio was confirmed in an unvaccinated three-and-a-half-year-old girl in March of 2022 which matched strains detected in environmental samples that were collected between September 2021 and January 2022 from Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

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In an effort to help jurisdictions prioritize vaccination efforts, the CDC will begin wastewater testing for polio beginning in Oakland County, Michigan and a Philadelphia area county. The areas chosen are defined as counties with “potentially low vaccination coverage” or counties with possible connections to the New York communities that are linked to the polio virus discovered there.

The testing will last four months and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) is partnering with the CDC to identify communities that are under-vaccinated for polio.

Chelsea Wuth, spokesperson for the state health department says, “Oakland is preliminarily where we are looking in consultation with CDC due to history of (vaccine-preventable disease) outbreaks. But we continue to triangulate where we have low coverage, risk of importation, previous vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks and appropriate sewer sampling locations.”

The CDC says that finding poliovirus in sewage or wastewater indicates that someone in the community is shedding poliovirus.

Although the testing will not be able to identify who is infected with the polio virus or how many people have it, it will give an indication if the virus is spreading in Michigan and give health officials a better idea of locations that need improved vaccination compliance.

In the city of Detroit and seven Michigan counties, the vaccination rate has fallen below 60% for the primary childhood immunization series for toddlers. Oscoda county has the lowest immunization rate in the state at just 28.9%, followed by the city of Detroit which is at 47.2%. Other counties of high risk include Sanilac, Lake, Iron, Leelanau, Gladwin and Keweenaw.

Dr. José R. Romero, Director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, says, “Wastewater testing can be an important tool to help us understand if poliovirus may be circulating in communities in certain circumstances. Vaccination remains the best way to prevent another case of paralytic polio and it is critically important that people get vaccinated to protect themselves, their families and their communities against this devastating disease.”

The CDC says that when polio is found in communities that have low vacation rates, it can spread among unvaccinated individuals, putting them at risk for becoming infected and developing polio. Improving vaccination coverage, rapid reporting and national case surveillance are the keys to preventing additional cases of paralytic polio in the United States.