Report: Polio Threat To US Only Relevant In Communities With Low Vaccination Levels Amid Gaza Anti-Polio Vaccination Campaign

September 13, 2024

The Washington Post (9/12, Johnson) reports that as the World Health Organization carries out a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, the threat of polio to the US “is only in communities that have low vaccination levels. This was the case in July 2022, when New York announced that an unvaccinated man in Rockland County had contracted the first case of polio in nearly a decade.” Still, the Post adds, “as public pushback against vaccines has grown in recent years, scientists are concerned a polio outbreak would be more difficult to contain.”