WAS there a polio case in Minnesota?

[junomama]

Originally Posted by heldt123

They are milking this up just like the polio case.

I took that quote from the flu-in-MN thread but thought I'd start a new thread. My husband said he could have sworn that he heard about a case of polio here (we live in the Twin Cities), but I'd never heard of it. Apparently it was an immigrant from Asia or Africa who had it. Did that happen?

[alegna]

It was a child (I believe from the Amish community). And no, there was no case. The child just showed that they had been *exposed* to the strain from the old oral vax.

-Angela

[momto l&a]

Didnt the child just travel back from some country?

[alegna]

Nope. They never figured out where it came from.

The child was very ill with other issues and they just happened to test for that too. They then went on a wild goose chase and found several other amish children who showed exposure to the strain.

-Angela

[wonderwahine]

and exposure doesnt mean they have or had polio.

[LongIsland]

Minnesota DOH recorded NO polio cases from what many mistakenly believe was a "polio outbreak."

[Plummeting]

Well, it does mean they were exposed to the virus, contracted the virus, allowed it to replicate in the gut and probably transmitted it to other people. It just doesn't mean they were sick. None of the 4 or 5 ever showed any symptoms of polio. Usually polio infection lasts 3 weeks or a month or so, IIRC. After that time, you clear the virus and you're immune. So they did "have" a poliovirus, they just didn't develop paralysis or any other symptoms.

[LongIsland]

Originally Posted by Plummeting

Well, it does mean they were exposed to the virus, contracted the virus, allowed it to replicate in the gut and probably transmitted it to other people. It just doesn't mean they were sick. None of the 4 or 5 ever showed any symptoms of polio. Usually polio infection lasts 3 weeks or a month or so, IIRC. After that time, you clear the virus and you're immune. So they did "have" a poliovirus, they just didn't develop paralysis or any other symptoms.

Interestingly, Minnesota never reported any of those cases as "polio."

Can you just imagine it? If they tested a large amount of people to see if vaccine-derived polio and non-paralytic polio was circulating around.

Mayhem.

[junomama]

Originally Posted by Plummeting

Well, it does mean they were exposed to the virus, contracted the virus, allowed it to replicate in the gut and probably transmitted it to other people. It just doesn't mean they were sick. None of the 4 or 5 ever showed any symptoms of polio. Usually polio infection lasts 3 weeks or a month or so, IIRC. After that time, you clear the virus and you're immune. So they did "have" a poliovirus, they just didn't develop paralysis or any other symptoms.

That makes sense. Thanks!

[wonderwahine]

Originally Posted by Plummeting

Well, it does mean they were exposed to the virus, contracted the virus, allowed it to replicate in the gut and probably transmitted it to other people. It just doesn't mean they were sick. None of the 4 or 5 ever showed any symptoms of polio. Usually polio infection lasts 3 weeks or a month or so, IIRC. After that time, you clear the virus and you're immune. So they did "have" a poliovirus, they just didn't develop paralysis or any other symptoms.

yeah, you explain it better than me, im still waking up....I was meaning the symptomatic polio.

[junomama]

OK, I found an article about it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101301733.html

Excerpts (I hope I'm allowed to post these):

Four children have been infected with the virus, although none has become paralyzed.

...

The outbreak was discovered by chance on Sept. 29 after the first child -- a 7-month-old infant with a severe immune deficiency disease -- was tested for another problem in August. Yesterday's announcement reveals the microbe is circulating among healthy children in the isolated community, which has about 200 people in 24 families.

...

The virus that all four children are carrying is derived from the oral polio vaccine.

...

Where it was circulating, however, is a mystery. ... The first infected child had no known exposure to foreigners.

[momto l&a]

http://mt.lincolnshirepostpolio.org....ws/001199.html

[LongIsland]

Yesterday's announcement reveals the microbe is circulating among healthy children in the isolated community, which has about 200 people in 24 families.


Right.

Poliovirus, including vaccine-derived poliovirus, is only circulating in this one particular "isolated" community.

[MinnesotaMommy]

Here's a link to the story in the washington post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101301733.html

I have a question though about something said in the article.

Polio causes paralysis in about one in every 200 infections.

Is that figure correct or is it actually lower then that? Sorry still new to this and thought i'd read somewhere else that the number of people who contract polio and end up with paralysis was quite smaller then that total.


It also says:

Occasionally, however, a vaccine strain circulates for years, passed from one unvaccinated child to another. When that happens, it undergoes genetic mutation that can restore the dangerousness of the "wild" virus.

Jane Seward, a vaccine expert at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said genetic fingerprinting of the Minnesota strain shows it is about 2.3 percent different from the vaccine strain. This suggests it has been circulating for a little more than two years.

So isn't that pretty much saying that by giving the vaccine they are the ones
who have been keeping the danger of polio alive?

[MinnesotaMommy]

oops accidently posted the same link lol

sorry

[junomama]

But we quoted from different parts of the story, so it's good!

(I wasn't sure if it was OK to post the whole story verbatim because they have a big "permission to repost" link at the bottom of the page.)

[wonderwahine]

Originally Posted by MinnesotaMommy

So isn't that pretty much saying that by giving the vaccine they are the ones
who have been keeping the danger of polio alive?

by giving the OPV they were, the US no longer uses OPV, but other countries do, which just happen to be countries with polio cases.

they also dont know how long the vax version will continue to circulate.

[junomama]

I was wondering that, too. Could the baby have picked up the virus from someone who had received the oral vaccine?

[Deborah]

In addition, the vax version isn't necessarily less virulent. Some people do get polio from it, the paralytic polio that all the fuss is about.

Deborah

[alegna]

Originally Posted by junomama

I was wondering that, too. Could the baby have picked up the virus from someone who had received the oral vaccine?

That's exactly what DID happen. Thing is, they don't know who. That vax isn't given in the US any more. They can't find any contacts with anyone who would have had that vax recently. That leads them to believe that it wasn't first hand. Someone else had contact with someone who had the vax, then passed it on to the baby.

-Angela