Israeli health officials have identified the country’s first case of polio in decades, according to reports.
An unvaccinated child, 4, from Jerusalem, contracted the highly transmissible virus, making it the first polio case in Israel since 1988, the Israeli Health Ministry said Sunday.
The Jerusalem District Health Bureau launched an epidemiological investigation and will be reaching out to people who were in close contact with the child, the ministry said, according to the Times of Israel.
Polio, which mainly affects children under the age of five, invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours, the World Health Organization (WHO) says on its website.
“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,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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