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Most people in the U.S. are vaccinated, which provides substantial protection, experts say.
It had been nearly 10 years since the U.S. saw a case of polio before an unvaccinated adult man contracted poliovirus type 2 in June, which led to paralysis.
However, most people are immunized against the poliovirus, even if they don’t know it — and that immunity is expected to be life-long, experts told MedPage Today.
Amesh Adalja, MD, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an infectious disease, critical care, and emergency physician in Pittsburgh, said that those who are uncertain about their polio vaccine status probably do not need to worry.
“I think that it would have taken some effort to not be vaccinated against polio, because it is a routine childhood immunization,” he said. “People that are not vaccinated probably would have had some reason not to be vaccinated … because it’s such a standard routine vaccination and required to enter school, that it would be very rare that you were not vaccinated and didn’t know it.”
Michigan Voices for Better Health 