Polio-like Illnesses Have Affected At Least 38 Children In The United States

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

A polio-like illness that causes paralysis has affected children in several states, including Pennsylvania, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota.

There are 38 confirmed cases of acute flaccid myelitis (MFA), a disease that resembles polio that attacks the nervous system, spinal cord and causes paralysis and respiratory failure, has affected children in 16 states in 2018. Three cases were reported in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reported ABC News.

A spokesperson for UPMC Children's Hospital, where the children are housed, told the center: “Isolation protocols and infection control procedures have been implemented, and we are working with the Allegheny County Health Department to monitor and evaluate conditions of the patient”.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment website says 14 cases of MFA have appeared in the state this year, one per year since 2015 and 11 in 2014.

Most of the 14 Colorado residents' diseases were related to enterovirus A71, and two were related to enterovirus D68. Both are particular strains of the polio virus family, according to ABC News.

In Chicago, two patients have contracted the disease, ABC7 reported. One of the patients, 2-year-old Julia Payne, begins rehabilitation after facing the disease for almost a month.

"It's actually just a common cold virus and it attacked Julia's body and spinal cord in a certain way, and it appears to be happening to other children as well," Josh Payne, Julia's father, told ABC7.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 120 cases in 34 states in 2014, 22 cases in 17 states in 2015, 149 cases in 38 states and Washington, DC, in 2016 and 33 cases in 16 states in 2017.

"The cause of most AFM cases remains unknown," the CDC wrote. "We don't know what caused the increase in AFM cases from 2014."

The CDC lists facial weakness / tilt, difficulty moving the eyes, drooping eyelids, or difficulty swallowing, or difficulty speaking as symptoms. The CDC added: "The most serious symptom of AFM is respiratory failure that can occur when the muscles involved in respiration weaken."