Children-paralyzing
virus spreads across 40 states
RT
,
2
October, 2014
Several
hundred US kids are being treated for Enterovirus 68 – a
respiratory illness that can cause children to become paralyzed.
Outbreaks of the virus have been detected in most of the fifty
states.
So
far, the virus has infected 443 children in 40 states, and the
District of Columbia, according to the US Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC).
Abbreviated as EV-D68, the virus was first
identified 50 years ago. However, it has rarely been tested for until
cases started appearing in the US Midwest and Southwest this year.
EV-D68
causes symptoms similar to the common cold but progresses into
wheezing, breathing problems and paralysis.
There is no drug yet
for the current strain of the virus, so treatment is focused on
helping patients to breathe.
CDC, state health officials and
doctors announced last week they were investigating nine cases of
children with muscles weakness or paralysis linked to the virus at
the Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Most had the respiratory illness
but then came down with an unspecified “acute
neurological illness.”
Four of the eight tested positive for the enterovirus, while eight of
the nine had up-to-date polio vaccinations.
“The
severity is what triggered our concern,”
said Mark Pallansch, director of the CDC’s Division of Viral
Diseases.
The number of ill children might increase once the
backlog of specimens has been tested, CDC said.
EV-D68 is one of
some 100 different non-polio enteroviruses attacking about 10-15
million infants and children a year.
Young people are most at risk of
getting sick as their immune systems have not fully developed.
Especially vulnerable are the children suffering from asthma.
The
polio-like paralysis cases are not as frequent, but a California
research team reported limb paralysis cases in five children as early
as February.
They did not regain the use of their limbs. Two of them
were confirmed with EV-68 and respiratory illness before the symptoms
began, and all of the children had been previously vaccinated against
poliovirus.
Newly
identified strains of the enterovirus have also been reported among
children in Asia and Australia, causing polio-like symptoms.
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