Polio has returned to the United States of America. Recently a case was found in an unimmunized young adult in Rockland County, New York. After a large-scale epidemiologic investigation and response, the polio virus was even found in New York City wastewater.
Prior to the pandemic Canada enjoyed extremely high childhood vaccination rates, but the pandemic has fueled the largest backslide in vaccinations in 30 years. The problem is so bad that in Manitoba and British Columbia the percentage of children with no vaccinations of any kind is now over 3%.
Many cases have sprung up in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It was only a couple of years ago that Africa was declared free of the polio virus. Africa is also the continent with the lowest levels of the COVID vaccinations.
Sadly, the availability of COVID vaccines has led to a massive upsurge of anti-vax disinformation. mRNA vaccines were "new" allowing groups to imply they were unsafe, leading to an anti-mandates political ideology.
As well, the pandemic caused a lack of easy access to primary care physicians which resulted in an abrupt decline in routine childhood immunizations.
Dr. Evans shared the history of the polio vaccine, from the injectable version developed by Salk to the oral vaccine developed by Sabin.
Once the vaccine was developed, it was almost 20 years to the last recorded case (1977) of wild poliovirus in Canada.
If the oral vaccine is allowed to circulate in under-immunized populations, it can reactivate and cause outbreaks.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was created in 1988 to eradicate poliomyelitis. When the initiative began there were 350,000 cases per year in 125 countries with endemic polio. By 2017, just 8 cases were reported with endemic polio existing only in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The pandemic has set back GPEI by years, disrupted vaccine campaigns, increased anti-vaccine sentiment, and reduced childhood vaccinations. We must redouble our efforts to vaccinate and continue to counter disinformation.