On Jul. 21, 2022, The New York State Department of Health confirmed that a case of paralytic poliomyelitis was reported from a 20-year-old ‘unvaccinated’ Hungarian traveller residing in Rockland County. The first case of poliomyelitis after 3 decades of its eradication. The detected viral sequence was found to have vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (VDPV2) suggesting an origin from the live attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV).

Poliomyelitis is an incurable and serious infectious disease caused by poliovirus. The patient was not previously vaccinatedIt can cause acute muscle paralysis, permanent central nervous system damage, and even death. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), death occurs in about 5–10% of patients who become permanently paralyzed due to immobilization of their breathing muscles.

The United States has not officially confirmed an infection since 2013 until the case in Rockland County. The case in Rockland County contracted a strain of polio from the OPV, which shows that the line of transmission did not start in the U.S.