Cases of rare polio-like illness up sharply in 2016

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2016/...8521474482481/


Cases of rare polio-like illness up sharply in 2016
CDC officials are concerned about the seemingly sudden increase in cases of acute flaccid myelitis.
By Stephen Feller | Sept. 21, 2016 at 3:56 PM

The 36 cases of acute flaccid myelitis reported to the CDC so far this year are the most since 2014, the first year the agency tracked the condition. It appears AFM occurs in some children who contract enterovirus D68, though most children recover from the respiratory illness it causes and do not experience the paralytic condition. Photo by drpnncpptak/Shutterstock

ATLANTA, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- A sudden rise in cases of acute flaccid myelitis, a polio-like illness that first appeared in large numbers of children in 2014, has doctors concerned by a potential outbreak they understand little about.

There have been 32 new cases of AFM reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention so far this year, the most since 120 children in 34 states were diagnosed with the condition during a five-month period in 2014.

AFM appears to start with a fever or respiratory illness before neurologic symptoms set in, slowly preventing movement of the limbs. Nearly all of the patients show inflammation of the gray matter in the spinal cord, with 85 percent of children showing some improvement in their condition, just three of the 120 diagnosed in 2014 have recovered fully.

The CDC reported the rise in cases seen since January, along with data from 2014, as it attempts to determine the cause of AFM and why the increase is being seen this year...

[Shiloh]

Source: http://food.ndtv.com/health/a-myster...s-year-1465606



A Mysterious Polio-Like Illness That Paralyzes People May Be Surging This Year
The Washington Post | Updated: September 23, 2016 16:54 IST

...The CDC official who leads the surveillance efforts said that confirmed numbers for August will not be available until the end of this month, but the number of reports she is receiving from doctors around the country continues to rise.

"CDC is looking at these trends very carefully," Manisha Patel said. "We have sent out several health alerts to states to let them know we are seeing an increase in reporting and to encourage them to communicate with doctors to report these cases in a timely fashion."

The CDC began tracking AFM in 2014, when 121 cases were confirmed. That year, the CDC counted only children affected by the disease. Their average age was 7. Most had a fever or a respiratory illness a few days before developing paralysis. Many had to be placed on respirators. Although 85 percent of the children recovered partially, only three of them recovered fully.

Health officials and physicians around the country said they are concerned that the rising number of cases through July could foretell a repeat of 2014.

"You hate to be an alarmist, but there's reason to have some concern," said Avindra Nath, chief of the section of infections of the nervous system at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "What we don't know is where are these cases. Are they clustered? Do they all look alike? Getting more information on these cases would be helpful."

Beyond saying that confirmed cases have been reported in 17 states through July, Patel declined to reveal which states have been involved. But conversations and emails with physicians around the country indicate that at least four cases have occurred in California, at least three in Massachusetts and that others have been seen in Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania and New York, as well as Virginia.

"We are definitely hearing of cases from our colleagues across the country," said Teri Schreiner, a neurologist at the University of Colorado and Children's Hospital Colorado. "It's a trend that's worrisome what I'm hearing from others seems to be coming at a tempo similar to what happened in 2014."

Jean-Baptiste Le Pichon of Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., said he subscribes to a U.S. email list for pediatric neurologists, and that doctors on it reported five new cases of AFM in just the past few days. "There is definitely an explosion of cases," Le Pichon said...