Israeli health officials recently reported the country’s first case of polio in over 30 years.

An unvaccinated child, 4, from Jerusalem, contracted the highly transmissible virus, making it the first polio case in Israel since 1988, the Israeli Health Ministry said Sunday. //

Most people infected with poliovirus (about 72 out of 100) are asymptomatic. Approximately 1 out of 4 people with poliovirus infection will develop flu-like symptoms, and about 1 out of 500 infected will develop more serious health effects.

Sewage testing in Jerusalem indicates a potential for many asymptomatic cases. A new vaccine campaign is being implemented. //

The recently reported case was identified in a child who was 3 years and 9 months old and showed symptoms of paralysis, said Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesman for the WHO.

He said this was an isolated case of a vaccine-derived poliovirus, a mutated form of the virus that can be fostered by the oral vaccine used in many countries and can cause paralysis when spread over a period of time between unvaccinated children.

“It is definitely not a wild poliovirus, imported from Pakistan or Afghanistan,” Mr. Rosenbauer said in an email, referring to the main and most dangerous form of the virus. “That we know for certain. But more needs to be found out, in terms of where or how this strain emerged, and whether it is circulating.” //

simpsonson | March 9, 2022 at 8:13 pm
Is it possible that this case (and others potentially) is a result of terrorist biowarfare as payback for Israel making Jerusalem its capital?

Milhouse in reply to bart simpsonson. | March 9, 2022 at 10:33 pm
Very very unlikely. This particular case is a weird variant that seems to have mutated from the oral vaccine. This cannot happen to the injected vaccine, which is why in most first-world countries that is now used instead of the oral one; but in Israel, because of its proximity to areas where polio still exists, both varieties are used — the shot in infancy, and then the oral as a booster in mid-childhood.