The latest incidents represent the first time in several years that vaccine-connected polio virus has turned up in rich countries.
For years, global health officials have used billions of drops of an oral vaccine in a remarkably effective campaign aimed at wiping out polio in its last remaining strongholds — typically, poor, politically unstable corners of the world.
Earlier this year, officials in Israel detected polio in an unvaccinated 3-year-old, who suffered paralysis. Several other children, nearly all of them unvaccinated, were found to have the virus but no symptoms. The oral vaccine at issue has been used since 1988 because it is cheap, easy to administer — two drops are put directly into children's mouths — and better at protecting entire populations where polio is spreading. It contains a weakened form of the live virus.
“We probably could never have gotten on top of polio in the developing world without the , but this is the price we’re now paying,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “The only way we are going to eliminate polio is to eliminate the use of the oral vaccine."
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