NewsDesk @bactiman63

In a follow-up on the report of a poliovirus case in Rockland County last month, state health officials have reported the virus being detected in wastewater samples from at leas t two counties:

Rockland County

Poliovirus Image/CDC

The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) launched wastewater surveillance for polio after the case was identified.

Following analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the polio virus was detected in samples from June in Rockland County.

As part of ongoing surveillance efforts, New York wastewater samples are shared with the Global Polio Laboratory Network (GPLN), which includes CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO). GPLN confirmed that the case in New York is genetically linked to two Sabin-like type 2 (SL2) isolates, collected from the early June samples from Rockland County and samples from greater Jerusalem, Israel as well as to the recently-detected VDPV2 from environmental samples in London, UK. New Yorkers should know that this does not imply that the individual case identified in New York has travel history to Israel or the UK.

Orange County

The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) has recently advised the Orange County Department of Health (OCDOH) that the polio virus has been identified in wastewater samples taken from June and July in two geographically different locations in Orange County.

These wastewater samples were initially collected from municipal wastewater treatment plants across Orange County and have been tested for COVID-19. There have been no confirmed cases of polio infection identified to date in Orange County, but virus is circulating in the community according to wastewater analysis reports.