The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is taking things up a notch to look into a mysterious polio - like disease that ’s paralyzing young fry . to begin with this week , the agency announced it would form a project force play to better treat and confirm the cause of acute flaccid myelitis ( AFM ) , apparently in response to a solid uptick in showcase this yr .
AFM affects the nervous system , damage the area of the spinal cord that ’s made of grey matter . Its victims are almost always fry , who can developsymptomslike muscle weakness , difficultness speaking or swallow , and paralysis . grant to the CDC , there have been 108 confirm cases of AFM document across 29 states in 2018 so far , out of a total of 273 reports mail to the CDC . ( Some of these likely cases are still being investigated ) . There have been no report deaths as of yet , but AFM can be fatal .
“ I require to reaffirm to parents , patients , and our Nation CDC ’s allegiance to this serious medical experimental condition , ” CDC director Robert R. Redfield articulate in astatementMonday . “ This Task Force will ensure that the full content of the scientific community is engaged and working together to provide important answers and solutions to actively detect , more efficaciously do by , and at last foreclose AFM and its consequences . ”
Doctors have known about the existence of AFM for a long time , since historically , it ’s often been triggered by an infection of the poliomyelitis computer virus . But with the Parousia of the polio vaccine and the eventual eradication of polio in the U.S. , the condition became incredibly rarefied .
In 2014 , though , cases of AFM set forth being spotted much more often , which prompted the CDC to monitor it closely . That year , there were 120 cases report . Since then , AFM has followed a unusual convention , ostensibly jump up in relative frequency every two years . In 2015 , for case , there were only 22 confirmed cases , while 2016 saw 150 instance . In 2017 , the number of cases had dropped down again , to just 33 . This class has confirm the pattern , but we still do n’t know why it ’s materialize .
What we do know is that poliomyelitis is n’t cause these newer cases of AFM , which has left doctor marvel what incisively is . In 2014 , the outbreak of AFMfolloweda particularly big outbreak of enterovirus D68 , a cousin of the poliomyelitis virus that typically causes the mutual cold . The absolute majority of shaver with AFM have reported having a respiratory infection or febrility properly before coming down with AFM , further implicating it .
The CDC currently acknowledges the likely role of D68 in AFM , but has n’t come out and wholly back it as the independent perpetrator . That ’s belike because of the lack of unmediated grounds . While doctors have notice D68 in the spinal fluid of some AFM patients , the Brobdingnagian majority of cases do n’t have any sign of D68 spinal infection , and D68 is n’t the only computer virus that ’s been found in patients ’ spinal fluid .
Other doctors , including some of the first to discern AFM in 2014 , have recentlyarguedthat the produce pile of circumstantial proof — include evidence that current strains of D68 have mutated and resemble the polio virus much more that they used to — is now more than enough to convict D68 . But time will narrate if the project strength assembled by the CDC will consort .
[ CDC ]
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