The health secretary of the State of Pará said this Thursday (6) that they are investigating a poliomyelitis virus found in the feces of a three-year-old boy in the municipality of Santo Antônio do Tauá. The Ministry of Health suspects that the case is related to a vaccine error.
"The type of virus detected in the exam is one of the components of the vaccine, not being the wild poliovirus, which has been eradicated in the country since 1994," the Pará secretary said in a note.
The Ministry of Health declared that a team will be sent to the state to follow up on the investigation. According to members of the ministry, there is no circulation of the virus in Brazil and the case stems from a probable erroneous application of the vaccine. They say they are still afraid that the repercussion will get in the way of the immunization campaign against the disease.
If the condition is, in fact, related to the vaccine virus, it will be one of the very rare documented cases. There are estimates that point to only 2 to 4 cases of paralysis associated with the polio vaccine per million children born in countries with the use of the oral vaccine against the disease.
Translated by Cassy Dias