German authorities on Thursday identified the northern city of Hamburg as the location where a sewage sample containing the wild form of the polio virus had been found.
The nation’s main public health body, Robert Koch Institute, or RKI, told Reuters on Wednesday that the wastewater test at an unspecified German location was positive for the wild polio virus, in a setback for efforts to rid the world of the deadly disease.
The findings came more than 30 years after the last cases of wild polio virus infections in people were registered in Germany and marked the first wild virus detection from environmental sampling in the country since this type of routine monitoring began in 2021.
Most likely of means someone from a place where wild polio remains, Afghanistan or Pakistan, is in Hamburg. Could be an adult, as they won’t be symptomatic but can spread the virus.
