4-Year-Old Tests Positive For Polio In Israel, Marks Country's First Case In 3 Decades

A 4-year-old child from Jerusalem has tested positive for polio, marking Israel's first case in decades. The country has not had a polio case since the late 1980s.

The Health Ministry of Israel noted the child's case in a statement Sunday, The Jerusalem Post reported. The regional health administration in Jerusalem has already opened an investigation on the matter and is also in contact with the child's family.

So far, the child has not been hospitalized and the symptoms are "unclear," Haaretz noted. However, the child was reportedly unvaccinated against the disease. As such, authorities are urging those who haven't been vaccinated yet to get jabbed.

The case was identified amid the monitoring of sewage water for the virus in the area. In the past, sewage water had presented evidence of the virus but no clinical case was identified. In 2013, for instance, the national vaccination drive ensued after samples of the virus were detected in the wastewater, according to Haaretz.

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a "highly infections viral disease" that typically affects children below 5 years old. This is usually transmitted from person to person via the fecal-oral route or through droplets from the sneeze or cough of an infected person. It may also be transmitted via contaminated food or water, although this is said to be a less common route.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most people who are infected with the poliovirus don't get visible symptoms, but "one out of four" may experience symptoms such as fever, stomach pain, tiredness and nausea. These flu-like symptoms typically "go away on their own."

However, "much less than one out of 100, or 1-5 out of 1000" may experience more severe symptoms, from paresthesia or the feeling of pins and needles in the legs to meningitis and paralysis.

"Paralysis is the most severe symptom associated with polio, because it can lead to permanent disability and death," the CDC noted. "Between 2 and 10 out of 100 people who have paralysis from poliovirus infection die, because the virus affects the muscles that help them breathe."

In 1999, the World Health Assembly resolved to eradicate polio with the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Countries reaffirmed their commitments to the cause in June of 2021.

"While polio cases have fallen 99.9% since 1988, polio remains a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) and persistent barriers to reaching every child with polio vaccines and the pandemic have contributed to an increase in polio cases," the World Health Organization said in 2021. "Last year, 1226 cases of all forms of polio were recorded compared to 138 in 2018."

In February, the southern African country of Malawi discovered a wild poliovirus case in a young girl who was also not fully immunized, prompting the efforts to vaccinate millions of children below the age of 5. The February detection was Malawi's first case in 30 years and Africa's first case in five years.