CDC may use oral polio vaccine for first time in 20 years amid NY outbreak

The following is an excerpt from NBC 4 New York/CNBC News.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering using an oral polio vaccine for the first time in more than 20 years to stop an outbreak in the greater New York City metropolitan area that left an adult paralyzed over the summer.

"We are in discussions with our New York State and New York City colleagues about the use of nOPV," said Dr. Janell Routh, the CDC's team leader for domestic polio, referring to the novel oral polio vaccine. The oral vaccine the CDC is considering is a newer form that is more stable and carries less risk of mutation. 

"It will be a process. It's not something that we can pull the trigger on and have it appear overnight," Routh told CNBC on Friday. "There will be lots of thought and discussion about the reintroduction of an oral polio vaccine into the United States," she said.

U.S. drug regulators pulled the oral vaccine off shelves in 2000 because it contains a live — but weakened — strain of the virus that can, in rare circumstances, mutate into a virulent form that is contagious and can potentially paralyze people who are not vaccinated.

Scientists believe this latest outbreak was caused by someone who was vaccinated with the live virus overseas and started a chain of transmission that eventually found its way to the United States. 

While the oral vaccine doesn't normally cause polio that paralyzes people, this one did because it was able to mutate into more virulent strains while spreading among people who weren't vaccinated.

The U.S. currently uses the inactivated polio vaccine, which is administered as a shot and contains chemically killed virus that cannot replicate, mutate or cause disease.

While New York state health officials have launched an immunization drive with the inactivated polio shots, that vaccine hasn't stopped this outbreak.

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