The United States has issued a travel warning for Americans traveling to five countries.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an update to its global travel alert<\/a> that polio is circulating in Finland, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Kenya. The CDC added those countries to a list that includes more than 30 others with poliovirus cases in the past year.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore any international travel, make sure you are up to date on your polio vaccines,\u201d the CDC said. \u201cBefore travel to any destination listed below, adults who previously completed the full, routine polio vaccine series may receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n The advisory classifies the polio virus as \u201cLevel 2,\u201d which encourages travelers to \u201cpractice enhanced precautions.\u201d<\/p>\n The CDC describes polio as a crippling and potentially deadly disease that affects the nervous system. Most people with polio do not feel sick or suffer minor symptoms, such as fever, tiredness, nausea, headache, nasal congestion, sore throat, cough, stiffness in the neck and back, and pain in the arms and legs. In rare cases, polio causes permanent loss of muscle function (paralysis) and can be fatal if the muscles used for breathing are paralyzed or if there is an infection of the brain.<\/p>\n Besides getting vaccinated, the CDC urged travelers to wash their hands regularly and avoid contaminated water and foods.<\/p>\n \u201cGood hand washing practices can help prevent the spread of this disease. Because the virus that causes polio lives in the feces (poop) of an infected person, people infected with the disease can spread it to others when they do not wash their hands well after defecating (pooping),\u201d the CDC said. \u201cPeople can also be infected if they drink water or eat food contaminated with infected feces.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the CDC, polio has been detected in the following countries over the past 12 months:<\/p>\n AfghanistanAlgeriaAngolaBeninBurkina FasoCameroonCentral African RepublicChadC\u00f4te d\u2019IvoireDemocratic Republic of the CongoDjiboutiEgyptEthiopiaFinlandFrench GuianaGazaGermanyGhanaGuineaIndonesiaIsraelKenyaLiberiaNigerNigeriaPakistanPapua New GuineaPolandSenegalSierra LeoneSomaliaSouth SudanSpainSudanTanzaniaUgandaUnited KingdomYemenZimbabwe<\/p>\n The CDC also monitors other global diseases including \u201cLevel 2\u2033 concerns like chikungunya, diphtheria, mpox and yellow fever. \u201cLevel 1\u2033 alerts, which encourage practicing \u201cusual precautions,\u201d include cases of measles<\/a>, dengue, malaria, and salmonella.<\/p>\n No \u201cLevel 3\u2033 or \u201c4\u2033 advisories are currently in place. \u201cLevel 3\u2033 urges Americans to \u201cReconsider Nonessential Travel\u201d and \u201cLevel 4\u2033 says \u201cAvoid All Travel.\u201d<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States has issued a travel warning for Americans traveling to five countries. The U.S. Centers for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97,308,17512,6808],"class_list":{"0":"post-82318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-horizontal","10":"tag-leisure","11":"tag-tourism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}