WHO was notified on 7 March 2022 of the detection of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 3 (cVDPV3) in an unvaccinated child from Jerusalem city. Investigations (including environmental, epidemiological and virological) are ongoing to determine the origin of cVDPV3 and the scope of circulation. As of 15 April, a total of seven VDPV3 positive have been confirmed, including the index case and six asymptomatic children.
ALBANY, N.Y. (March 10, 2023) – The New York State Department of Health today urged all New Yorkers planning travel this spring to Israel and other countries with circulating poliovirus to get fully immunized against polio and to follow CDC recommendations for such travel.
In recent days, Israel’s Ministry of Health confirmed four children had tested positive for poliovirus in Northern Israel, after one unvaccinated child presented symptoms of paralysis. The other three children are currently asymptomatic. Israel has additionally reported widespread detection of poliovirus in wastewater systems. This latest outbreak follows one that was detected in February 2022 when seven children tested positive for poliovirus in Jerusalem, six of whom were asymptomatic, and after which Israel launched a nationwide vaccination campaign to prevent further spread of the virus.
In February 2013, WPV1 was first isolated from sewage samples collected for routine environmental surveillance in southern Israel.
WPV1 has subsequently been isolated in stool samples from 42 carriers (4.4% of the sampled population) tested in area of WPV1 circulation [2]. Forty of 42 were children from the age group of 0-9. They were reported to have been fully vaccinated with IPV, according to Israeli national recommendations [3].
Polio outbreaks are raging nearby in Pakistan and war-torn Syria. But in developed, prosperous Israel, no one saw this coming. The country has an impressively high immunization rate of at least 95%, and it uses the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), the vaccine of choice in high-income countries, which unlike the oral live-virus vaccine used in … .