brooklyn

After more than two
years living with a global pandemic, two more health concerns are on the radar
of officials in the Hudson Valley.

Recently, the World
Health Organization named monkeypox a global public health emergency. And
shockingly – polio has been detected in the U.S. for
the first time in almost a decade.

What are the risks
and what can, and should you do to protect yourself and your family? Scott
McGee speaks with Harish Moorjani, an infectious disease expert with Phelps
Hospital, on this week’s edition of Power &amp; Politics. 

Recently, the World Health Organization named monkeypox a global public health emergency. And shockingly – polio has been detected in the U.S. for the first time in almost a decade.

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Power & Politics: Monkeypox and polio – new health scares on heels of COVID-19

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Hello and welcome to this edition of Power Politics. I'm scott McGee now, just when you thought you'd had enough of one virus, not one but two more are on the radar of health officials in new york and in fact across the Hudson valley recently the World Health Organization named Monkey pox. A global public health emergency. And shockingly even polio has been detected in the U. S. For the first time in almost a decade. So what is going on here? What are the risks? What can and should you do to protect yourself and your family? We've got the right person here to tell us all about that. That is dr Harris moore johnny. He is an infectious disease expert with Phelps hospital doctor more johnny. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. So there are a couple of health issues to talk about better. Not surprising a couple frankly that are surprising. Let's talk about the first one that has sort of been a slow burn but it's really starting to get into the consciousness out there. And that is monkey pox. Recently the W. H. O. Declared it a health emergency. Is it a health emergency? Well the W. H. O. Says it's a health emergency from a personal perspective, I don't think it's a health emergency and for many, many reasons we are seeing a lot of cases. I have personally seen six cases now of monkeypox whether in the acute phase or in the recovery phase and around the U. S. I think there's close to about 4800 cases now. And they started in May and the origin of this is still up for speculation but possibly at a island off the coast of Africa and then it spread worldwide and you are starting to see this everywhere. New york has 1/4 of the US cases. Almost 1213 100 cases I think now and so it is being transmitted. But the transmission is inefficient compared to Covid compared to flu, it is not airborne unless it is in specific circumstances where you have aerosol generated procedures or aerosol generated the generation that occurs because of close contact and coughing and so on and so forth. But it's it's essentially transmitted through actual direct contact. And so you're not going to see a large number of cases like we are seeing with Covid or the flu. Yet on the other hand, you know, it is creating a little bit of a concern out there. So yes it's it's uh it's something to be worried about but not unduly. Uh Just how dangerous is it? Of course Covid is much deadlier than the flu. We've learned that very painfully smallpox and things that are exceptionally deadly. And we've seen the pictures of monkey pox and the lesions that it can create. Look very painful. But but just how dangerous is it as far as if you've been infected. So if you look at the numbers about almost 5000 cases across the US only four people have died. Now, I shouldn't say only four but four people have died. So the case fatality rate is very low compared to flu and covid and some of the other respiratory viruses, it is the West African strain. We are not seeing the Central African or the Congo strain. We are seeing seeing the West african strain which is less of an invasive pathogen than compared to the Central african strain which can cause 1% mortality. In previous studies. Having said that, you know, we have vaccination rollout going on, we have public health messaging going on. People are aware and if they take proper precautions of contact then I think this disease will slowly slowly come to an end. We also have antivirals which are available through a special protocol from the CDC and we can get those if we want to. We also have other tools like immune globulin to treat people who may get into severe disease. But for the most part we're seeing people just recover on their own over the week or two of the course of the illness? Can you talk about the treatment itself? We have had some vaccination drives. But does is this something that everyone needs or is this something that in a specific group or subgroup that may be at higher risk. So everyone that got the smallpox vaccine, two doses in their childhood is protected against this disease. I mean there is cross protection of all the pox viruses remember when Edward Jenner first created the smallpox vaccine, it was cowpox, it was not the human smallpox. And so that protected against smallpox. And then we had the vaccine virus which is part of the fox family but not monkey pox are smallpox and that protects against the whole series of pox viruses. And that's the one that that we are using now that's the strain we are using to give out. And so you know a large majority of people who are born before who got the vaccine before 1980 are protected for 12. You know this is through close contact. So if you are at risk and if you believe you are at risk you can call the Department of Health. And if you do qualify vaccine will be given out more than 800,000 doses of this new vaccine called the genius vaccine is being given out over the next couple of weeks throughout the U. S. A lot of that will be available in new york because this is what we are seeing as the epicenter of monkeypox in the US today. Then there is also the old smallpox vaccine. It's the A. K. M. 2000 which is the live replicating vaccine that has a lot more side effects. And we have a few million doses of that tens of millions of doses of that in stockpile. Now whether we will ever need that or not is up to is up for speculation because the vaccine maker that does make the vaccine, the new genius live attenuated non replicating vaccine Is starting to ramp up production and hopefully by the end of the year we'll have 10, 20 million doses available. And that should bring this monkey pox outbreak to an end. That is certainly good news there. Alright, let's talk about the other virus that's infecting people. That's the one that seems like it's just gonna be with us forever. That is covid still infecting people. Uh my son just a couple weeks ago here, very healthy but he got covid. It seems like several people I know have gotten it recently here we are in the middle of summer. Clearly this virus is very different than everything we've seen before. What stage are we in with this pandemic? And and do we need to call it an endemic now. So the pandemic started 2.5 years ago and we had no idea where this would go because this is a brand new type of virus, a type of virus that we have never seen before. It is a coronavirus. But it is different because it attaches to the ace two receptor which is the center of the inflammatory universe. So it sets off a whole chain of inflammatory events, most of which are detrimental to the person that's getting the infection and as a result of that, we started to see unusual findings that the pathological findings in the acute phase where different treatment is different, it goes rapidly from one stage to another stage. You know, even when it has infected somebody over a period of few days and treatment and management is different. So it really tested the health care system. And now what we are seeing is not only the long covid because because of the up regulation of inflammation, but we are starting to see this virus change very rapidly. Whether that's from pressure of vaccines or whether that's because of adaptability of the virus itself remains to be seen. I do believe the vaccines are playing a role in the change of this virus. It has gone from being a very invasive virus which caused a lot of death and devastation as we saw to now being a very highly transmissible virus, The B. F. Four and BF. Five strain and the next one on the horizon 2.75 strain, highly infectious transmissible but much less virulent, so not causing as much severe disease. Most of the disease we are seeing now in people who are getting the B. F. Four and five is limited to the upper respiratory tract, in the in the oral pharynx, in the mouth, in the throat and in the upper airways rather than in the lower airway. And the few people that we are seeing who are still unvaccinated by choice are getting into trouble and getting into the hospitals and needing more intensive care. But even there we are we have now have the tools and we have the knowledge and we can manage those people so that death rates have come down tremendously. So you're starting to see another surge of B. F 45. And that has to do with the fact that there is clearly covid fatigue. I mean people have stopped wearing masks, they have stopped, you know, going indoors with by and wearing masks at the same time, social distancing has fallen by the wayside. So you're starting to see this virus transmit from one person to another but not causing has been damaged. The other thing that is very positive here is the availability of antivirals. There are two antivirals available to us and we are using those. We also have a monoclonal antibody available to us. We are using that. We're using that both for treatment post exposure and for prevention, pre exposure and very successfully. So, so has the disease become endemic? I think so, I think we are in the endemic phase. We've gone from this being a pandemic to an endemic. But having said that we should not lower our guard indoors wear your mask because that will reduce the amount of virus that you will get and that amount of virus that you get is directly correlated with the severity of disease. And then if you seek help early, you can be cured and and or even if you don't have to be put on antivirals, you will get over it without any major long term impact. And then the most important thing being more and more studies now, I mean now there's a mountain of evidence, a mountain scarred that shows that if you are vaccinated, you will not have big problems with this virus to begin with. And to long covid especially of the heart and the brain is much less than people who are vaccinated. A study just published, you know, a week ago in Jama showing clearly that heart and brain complications from covid are much much less in vaccinated as compared to the unvaccinated. So for people not to take vaccination against Covid, I think at this point of time in this pandemic or endemic as you call it is absolutely foolish. So go ahead get your vaccinations if you've not been vaccinated. And then the final piece of good news is that we do have a traditional vaccine that is now available. So people who are hesitant to take the new technology M. RNA vaccines, even though we now have a ton of safety data. And we know the vaccines are great. Then you do have the traditional Novavax vaccine which has been now been approved by the CDC. And you can get that that's the same vaccine technology that we use for tetanus and pneumonia and Hepatitis. So yes, we are in the endemic phase and I think we need to manage it from here on onwards and it should be fairly straightforward and simple. You know that that message is still so important to get out there. That really the vaccination, it's it's not a bulletproof shield but it definitely has been shown to reduce the chances of hospitalization and death. That should certainly be reason enough. Alright. You know what? We're just getting started here on power and politics coming up a virus declared eradicated just a few years ago. Making a surprise return. We will discuss the first polio case in the US. Welcome back to this edition of Power Politics. I'm scott McGee. I'm joined by Dr Harris moore johnny, an infectious disease specialist and dr more johnny. We gotta talk about a virus that literally we thought we were done with polio popped up in new york. The first case in the U. S. In nine years, the second in 30 years it was actually declared. Eradicated just a few years ago. So how does an eradicated disease come back? So think about this this way scarred the disease is eradicated as as we say, eradicated in the US. Not worldwide, there are pockets of polio still existing in Afghanistan and Pakistan and this is a connected global world, not only a connected global economy but a connected global world. People are traveling And are going to those countries and those areas and having said that you know, there is sporadic cases of polio that occur all the time now. It is a disease that you've had a vaccine for for almost 70 years, if not more. And the current vaccine inactivated vaccines and have had side effects, if any, you know, major side effects. So, and we do offer that vaccine to all Children born in this country and what you saw was a case of polio in Rockland County in june and in retrospect, you know, when they went back and looked at sewage samples, they were able to isolate this seven to virus seven to polio virus from the sewage back in early june. So this did exist there. This patient that in Rockland County who came down with it was unvaccinated, a choice that the parents made for that child to not vaccinate with the polio vaccine. Again, I think given the data, given the knowledge, given the science, that is a foolish decision and ultimately the child suffers where the child did come down with paralysis, has, has the child recovered? We don't know. So polio is a disease that 75% of the time you don't even know you have it because it's just like a flu like illness, a mild flu like illness and it goes away In 25% of the time you have symptoms where you have body aches backaches and and my algebra fever along with it. And uh then it's only in about 1% of cases that you see it going into the neurological phase, which is the paralysis phase. And of those that get paralysis, you know, some may reverse but some may be permanent as we have seen a disease that caused so much fear along with small back in the days when it was rampant worldwide. But you know, thanks to the vaccine, initially the oral live vaccine and then the inactivated injectable vaccine. So the vaccine that we have now the oral vaccine is now by violent because we thought we had eradicated seven to but we do have the travel and vaccine that is effective against all three strains. The inactivated injectable one that we give out in the U. S. Is active against all three strains. So if you choose not to vaccinate your child against polio then be warned that the virus is still around. It is a global world and the virus is around in this world and will make its way. And if your child happens to be unlucky to get it it could cause catastrophic consequences. Uh So that's that's the reason why unvaccinated people who serve as a host for this. Wretched virus polio is the reason that President franklin Delano Roosevelt spent a good part of his life in a wheelchair. People forget that. Uh but this whole situation leads me to my next question which is I was doing some research and I've been seeing uh some of the reporting worldwide that the number of vaccinations for Children has dropped from 86% to 81% in just the last couple of years. And I wonder as an infectious disease expert, how much that concerns you going forward? That's an immense concern. So here it is what I would classify as an emergency. The lack of vaccinations worldwide as a result of disruptions by COVID or as a Whatever the reason may be is what we should be focusing on because these are preventable polio is a preventable disease, completely preventable disease. It cannot be treated but it can be prevented 100%. And here we have a situation in the United States that we've seen a resurgence. So, and worldwide this is of course a big problem because the Children who get polio and who get neurological polio and paralysis then have to live a life. The quality of which is pathetic. And it's it's sad to say that despite all the efforts of W. H. O. The efforts of all the american organizations including Bill and Melinda Gates that we still have a large portion of Children worldwide, not in immunized against polio vaccine that is freely available openly available for anybody. And everybody that wants to take it. Sad situation. And so how do we turn this around? Are you seeing that in your practice? Are you feeling more resistance to just any kind of vaccine recently uh since since, you know, the whole covid controversy came around. Absolutely. So we occasionally get people who will come in and and want to talk about vaccinations and completely against vaccinations that has a lot of history to it. There was a lot of fraud research put out from this researcher in England and the whole thing about arsenic and Gomarsall and mercury and all the side effects that were made up. It was absolutely a fraud research and that put us on the back foot to begin with how however that has now been, you know, proven wrong. So vaccinations are accepted but there's still people who think that natural immunity is the way to go. I beg to differ completely. I think science and knowledge continues to evolve and the wise thing to do in life is to follow science and knowledge and our personal beliefs coming in in the way the people who will suffer are going to be either yourself if you make the decision for yourself or whoever else you make the decisions for. And especially when we have the strength of data that we do have for these vaccinations which are incredibly safe. I mean people drive without thinking and driving is hazardous vaccine related. Side effects are minuscule. And so I don't understand this thinking so we try and convince our patients at an individual level. But I think again, I'm sorry I have to I have to catch you up but I want to thank you for joining us today. Great information, appreciate all of that you have said thank you. Welcome back to this edition of Power and politics. I'm scott McGee and today we are talking about viruses of Rockland County. In fact continuing its push to get polio shots into the arms of unvaccinated residents after the announcement of a polio case in the county. The first in the United States in a decade. News twelve's Dan Caruso reports on the response so far. Yes. Med right once used their parking lot to vaccinate people against COVID-19 now they're using it against an old threat that re emerged last week polio. No, just drop it like it's dead weight. You are vaccinated at our patients and the communities we serve come first. So we wanted to make sure that the community had access to everything that they needed so far. The urgent care in Spring Valley has given shots to a handful of people since sunday adding they have enough polio vaccines to protect hundreds more at no cost to patients. Rockland Health Department has vaccinated dozens of people against polio at their series of clinics 18 on friday, dozens more on monday. All this comes after news that an unvaccinated young adult recently ended up paralyzed from the virus. No new details yet from the state or county health department on their investigation into that case. While health experts work fast to stop polio once again in pomona. Diane. Crusoe News 12. Thank you very much diane. Meanwhile, if you'd like to set up an appointment or you want to check out the county's next clinic, we do have a link on our website. That's news 12.com. We'll be right back with more news and weather.

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