Polio-like illness can cause paralysis during the night

Health officials have warned the United States against the occurrence of a rare polio-like illness with an unknown cause in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that they were working hard to find the causes of acute myelitis flaccid after receiving reports of children with the disease.

According to the institute, the disease suddenly causes healthy children a weakness, a loss of muscle in the limbs and a sagging face. Lazy eyelids, difficulty moving the eyes, speech problems and difficulty swallowing may also occur.

Erica Palacios, a native of Georgia, is one of the parents whose children have been struck by the disease. Her 2-year-old daughter Abigail had a fever and a double ear infection. A few days later, she awoke paralyzed from the neck. She was then diagnosed with AFM, reported WBTV.

In Georgia, two children contracted a disease that causes paralysis from the neck. Getty Images

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In a statement released Oct. 22, the CDC said cases of the disease had increased since August 2014. Authorities confirmed 386 cases between August 2014 and September 2018, mostly among children.

However, he pointed out that although more cases have been reported in the last five years, MAF is still considered a rare disease affecting only one in a million people.

The cause of acute flaccid myelitis remains unknown. This could be caused by the immune system attacking the body, for example, or by an unknown pathogen.

The Enterovirus D 68 (EV-D68) is a potential culprit. The outbreak of MFA cases in 2014 overlapped with a national outbreak of severe respiratory illness caused by the virus. But the CDC said that people with the disease did not routinely carry the virus.

Because of the uncertainty surrounding this disease, the CDC urged parents to update their children's immunization program to protect them from diseases such as polio and West Nile virus that could lead to illnesses such as than the MFA.

Dr. Ken Tyler, a neurologist at the University of Colorado's Faculty of Medicine, told NBC News that he was confident that the United States was witnessing the emergence of an "illness." new paralytic disease resembling polio ". most likely EV-D68.