[ad_1]
Public health officials trying to unravel the mystery of the polio-like condition known as acute flaccid myelitis that has now stricken at least 90 people, most of them children, in 27 states, have found one common thread: Almost all of the patients had viral infections before they came down with the condition, which can cause muscle weakness and paralysis.
The federal Centers for Disease and Control has ruled out the poliovirus and West Nile Virus as the cause of AFM, which is causing some children to lose the ability to move their face, neck, back, arms or legs. They suspect it may be related to some kind of seasonal enterovirus, which causes cold symptoms in most people.
But beyond that, health officials are struggling to identify what causes AFM, as the condition is known, and learn why it is on the uptick.
The CDC is also investigating 252 suspected cases of the illness and has ruled out AFM in 20 other cases. But 2018 is the third year that has seen an increase in the number of reported illnesses. AFM cases were up in 2014 (120 confirmed cases in 34 states) and 2016 (149 confirmed cases in 39 states).
There were significantly fewer cases in 2015 and 2017, and public health officials don’t know why.
(Get Across America Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts. Or, find your local Patch here and subscribe. Like us on Facebook. Also, download the free Patch iPhone app or free Patch Android app.)
The CDC said that among confirmed cases of AFM, almost all had experienced a viral illness in the weeks before they began experiencing limb weaknesses.
In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, the CDC’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier said another possibility is that the virus “triggered an immune response in the body that causes damage to the spinal cord.”
Messonnier said AFM is “a pretty dramatic disease,” and about half of patients do not recover from the paralysis and some have serious complications. No one has died from AFM, the CDC said.
“We don’t know why a small number of people develop AFM, while most others recover,” the CDC said in its report. “We are continuing to investigate this.”
In the confirmed cases, most patients became ill between August and October. “At this time of year, many viruses commonly circulate, including enteroviruses, and will be temporally associated with AFM,” the CDC said in its report.
At this point, the CDC doesn’t know if an already-detected virus, an as-yet unidentified virus or an environmental toxin is causing the uptick in cases. Toxins haven’t been completely ruled out, but neither are they the prime suspect in the rise in AFM. No single pathogen has been found in common with all of the cases,
“What we don’t know is what is triggering AFM,” Messonnier said. “It may be one of the viruses that we have already detected. It could be another virus that we haven’t detected.”
The first mysterious wave of paralysis cases in 2014 coincided with a wider spike in illnesses connected to an enterovirus called EV-D68, CDC officials said. But there was no such spike during the waves in 2016 or this year.
There’s also a lack of clinical evidence: CDC officials have checked the spinal fluid of about three-quarters of the 90 patients, and found EV-68 in only one. Another type of enterovirus called EV-A71 was found in only one other patient.
But there are questions about that, too. If a virus is the cause, it’s possible the test is not good enough, or the germ left the spinal fluid by the time the tests were taken, Messonnier said. It’s also possible the culprit is hiding elsewhere in the body.
Or perhaps the paralyzing illnesses are caused by some new germ for which no lab test has been developed. Or maybe there’s some predisposing factor in some patients that cause their immune systems to react so severely to a germ or other trigger that the immune response causes paralysis, CDC officials said.
Parents and even some scientists have criticized the agency for not solving the riddle.
“I understand why parents are frustrated. I’m frustrated. I want answers too,” said Messonnier, who is overseeing the agency’s outbreak investigation. CDC officials have pledged to do more to notify doctors to look for possible cases and to more thoroughly review cases from years past for further clues.
The illnesses have spiked in September each year there’s been a wave and tailed off significantly by November. But it can take weeks to determine which cases should be counted in the outbreak. More than 160 cases are still being investigated, and some of those may join the count, CDC officials said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
Photo via Shutterstock
Get the Across America newsletter
[ad_2]
Source link
