The Pennsylvania Department of Health (PA DOH) is alerting healthcare providers, laboratories, infection control specialists, and local health departments about an unvaccinated adult with poliovirus infection and acute flaccid paralysis along with wastewater detection in adjacent counties reported July 2022 in Rockland County, New York. PA DOH urges healthcare providers to consider polio as a possible cause of sudden onset of limb, facial, oropharyngeal, or respiratory muscle weakness, especially in persons who are not vaccinated or who are under-vaccinated for polio and have traveled to areas with a higher risk of polio or who have had contact with such persons. If providers have a clinical suspicion of a case of polio after they have evaluated a patient, they are to contact their local or state health department to discuss the case and to determine to test. Healthcare providers should immediately identify and schedule appointments for patients in your practice who are not up to date on the poliovirus vaccine. To read the full PA DOH Advisory, click here.
