CDC official warns Rockland polio case could be ‘tip of the iceberg’

An official from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning that New York could witness “several hundred cases” of polio following last month”™s news that an unvaccinated Rockland County man developed symptoms of the virus.

According to a report in The Hill, José Romero, director of the CDC”™s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned the single case could be “just the very, very tip of the iceberg.”

“There are a number of individuals in the community that have been infected with poliovirus. They are shedding the virus,” Romero said. “The spread is always a possibility because the spread is going to be silent.”

Rockland County”™s polio vaccination rate nearly 20 percentage points below the general U.S. population, according to the New York State Department of Health. Poliovirus was detected in the Rockland County and Orange County wastewaters, and the samples found were identified as being genetically linked to the virus that infected the Rockland County man.

To date, no other polio case has been confirmed. The Rockland County man was the first new polio case recorded in the U.S. in more than a decade.