The NHS has issued an urgent plea to the Jewish community ahead of Pesach to prioritise getting fully vaccinated against polio before travelling or seeing relatives.
According to the NHS, paralytic polio has recently been reported in an unvaccinated adult in New York and an unvaccinated child in Israel, both belonging to Jewish communities.
Last summer, the first polio case in the US for 10 years was detected in a Charedi community in New York state, and the disease was detected in wastewater in the Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Williamsburg Brooklyn where 56 per cent of adults are vaccinated, compared to the statewide average of 80 per cent.
Polio can cause paralysis or death, and while there is no cure, it can be prevented by being fully vaccinated. Individuals who are not or only partially vaccinated are at the highest risk of becoming infected.
