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The dark veil of the COVID-19 pandemic ensures that 2020 will go down as an infamous year in the history of human disease.
But this dark chapter has some surprises in store for which we can be grateful. In a new study, researchers have found that a predicted 2020 outbreak of a mysterious paralyzing disease did not materialize on schedule – and in a strange way, we actually have to thank the coronavirus.
The condition in question is called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM). This polio-like neurological disease mainly affects children, causing muscle weakness and, in some cases, permanent paralysis and even death.
For decades cases of AFM were very rare, but in recent years larger outbreaks in the United States and elsewhere have occurred, apparently repeated every two years.
A body of previous research has linked AFM to a rare virus called enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), and although it is not yet known how the virus manifests symptoms of AFM disease, concomitant outbreaks of the pair have led researchers to believe they are. almost certainly related.
In the new research, a team led by first infectious disease author and modeler Sang Woo Park at Princeton University followed case patterns of EV-D68 between 2014 and 2019, with the virus staging significant resurgences. the even years – 2014, 2016, and 2018 – which would be attributable to climatic factors.
The data suggests that 2020 is set to see another hit.
“We predicted that a major epidemic of EV-D68, and therefore an epidemic of AFM, would still have been possible in 2020 under normal epidemiological conditions”, explain the researchers in their study.
Of course, as the world struggled to witness, the epidemiological conditions of 2020 were anything but ordinary, and the expected combined blow of EV-D68 and AFM never happened.
In the United States – a country with far more cases of COVID-19 than any other – the combined effects of physical distancing, quarantine and isolation policies, and economic and civic closures all appeared to not only reduce the spread of the disease. SARS-CoV-2, but also EV-D68 as well.
“Our preliminary analysis indicates that the response to the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have affected the dynamics of an EV-D68 outbreak in 2020,” the authors write.
According to the researchers, there were 153 cases of AFM in 2016 and 238 cases in 2018, but only 31 cases in 2020.
In light of everything the United States has been going through lately, these are numbers to feel good about.
Still, there’s no time for complacency – especially since EV-D68’s unplanned gap year may have left a bigger than usual void in viral immunity to the virus. population level.
“Given the low number of [predicted] In the cases of EV-D68 in 2019, we would expect the number of susceptible individuals to increase, increasing the likelihood of a large outbreak occurring, ”the team said.
“If social distancing prevents the epidemic from occurring, then the vulnerable pool may increase further.”
The results are reported in Scientific translational medicine.
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