<p>The United States on Thursday reported its first case of polio in almost a decade.</p>.<p>New York state's health department said a person living in Rockland County, 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Manhattan, had tested positive for the disease.</p>.<p>America last recorded a polio case in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p>.<p>The latest case was a type "indicative of a transmission chain from an individual who received the oral polio vaccine (OPV)," officials said.</p>.<p>The oral vaccine was discontinued in the United States in 2000.</p>.<p>"This suggests that the virus may have originated in a location outside of the US where OPV is administered, since revertant strains cannot emerge from inactivated vaccines," New York's health department said in a statement.</p>.<p>Officials warned healthcare providers to be on the lookout for more cases and urged people in the area who are not vaccinated to get the shot.</p>.<p>A massive global effort has in recent decades come close to wiping out polio, a crippling and potentially fatal viral disease that mainly affects children under the age of five.</p>.<p>Cases have decreased by 99 percent since 1988, when polio was endemic in 125 countries and 350,000 cases were recorded worldwide.</p>.<p>In the United States, cases declined dramatically in the late 1950s and early 1960s after a vaccine was developed.</p>.<p>The last naturally occurring cases of polio in America were reported in 1979.</p>.<p>OPV replicates in the gut and can be passed to others through fecal-contaminated water -- meaning it won't hurt the child who has been vaccinated, but could infect neighbors in places where hygiene and immunization levels are low.</p>.<p>While weaker than wild poliovirus, which now exists only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the variant can cause serious illness and paralysis in people not vaccinated against the disease.</p>.<p>Last month, the World Health Organization and British health officials said that a type of poliovirus derived from vaccines had been detected in London sewage samples.</p>
<p>The United States on Thursday reported its first case of polio in almost a decade.</p>.<p>New York state's health department said a person living in Rockland County, 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Manhattan, had tested positive for the disease.</p>.<p>America last recorded a polio case in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p>.<p>The latest case was a type "indicative of a transmission chain from an individual who received the oral polio vaccine (OPV)," officials said.</p>.<p>The oral vaccine was discontinued in the United States in 2000.</p>.<p>"This suggests that the virus may have originated in a location outside of the US where OPV is administered, since revertant strains cannot emerge from inactivated vaccines," New York's health department said in a statement.</p>.<p>Officials warned healthcare providers to be on the lookout for more cases and urged people in the area who are not vaccinated to get the shot.</p>.<p>A massive global effort has in recent decades come close to wiping out polio, a crippling and potentially fatal viral disease that mainly affects children under the age of five.</p>.<p>Cases have decreased by 99 percent since 1988, when polio was endemic in 125 countries and 350,000 cases were recorded worldwide.</p>.<p>In the United States, cases declined dramatically in the late 1950s and early 1960s after a vaccine was developed.</p>.<p>The last naturally occurring cases of polio in America were reported in 1979.</p>.<p>OPV replicates in the gut and can be passed to others through fecal-contaminated water -- meaning it won't hurt the child who has been vaccinated, but could infect neighbors in places where hygiene and immunization levels are low.</p>.<p>While weaker than wild poliovirus, which now exists only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the variant can cause serious illness and paralysis in people not vaccinated against the disease.</p>.<p>Last month, the World Health Organization and British health officials said that a type of poliovirus derived from vaccines had been detected in London sewage samples.</p>