Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM) is paralyzing kids in Minnesota, US
A rare but potentially severe condition that causes weakness or even paralysis in the arms and legs of children is on the rise, the Centers for Disease and Control of US says.
- From August 2014 through August 2018, CDC has received information on a total of 362 cases of Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM) across the US; most of the cases continue to occur in children.
- Even with an increase in cases since 2014, AFM remains a very rare condition. Less than one in a million people in the United States get AFM each year.
- It’s always important to practice disease prevention steps, such as staying up-to-date on vaccines, washing your hands, and protecting yourself from mosquito bites.
- The Minnesota Department of Health recently announced six AFM cases have been classified in its state and were reported in children under 10 years old, living in the Twin Cities, central Minnesota and northeastern Minnesota.
Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) is a rare condition. It affects a person’s nervous system, specifically the spinal cord. AFM or neurologic conditions like it have a variety of causes such as viruses, environmental toxins, and genetic disorders.
AFM is thought to happen after someone contracts a virus, like poliovirus, West Nile virus, or adenovirus, the CDC says.
Minnesota, interestingly has seen heightened activity of the anti-vaccine lobby with Andrew Wakefield – a former doctor who is against vaccines – having made a trip to the state some time back
Symptoms of AFM
Symptoms can include sudden weakness in limbs, loss of reflexes, unability to control facial expressions, difficulty moving the eyes, drooping eyelids, difficulty swallowing, or slurred speech, the CDC reports. Some people may be unable to urinate, and, in severe cases, a person can suffer respiratory failure and need to be put on a ventilator.
Since August 2014, CDC has seen an increased number of people across the United States with AFM. We have not confirmed the cause for the majority of these cases. CDC has been actively investigating these AFM cases, and we continue to receive information about suspected AFM cases.
Since 2014, CDC has learned the following about the AFM cases:
- Most patients are children.
- The patients’ symptoms have been most similar to complications of infection with certain viruses, including poliovirus, non-polio enteroviruses, adenoviruses, and West Nile virus.
- Enteroviruses most commonly cause mild illness. They can also cause neurologic illness, such as meningitis, encephalitis, and AFM, but these are rare.
- CDC has tested many different specimens from AFM patients for a wide range of pathogens (germs) that can cause AFM. To date, no pathogen (germ) has been consistently detected in the patients’ spinal fluid; a pathogen detected in the spinal fluid would be good evidence to indicate the cause of AFM since this condition affects the spinal cord.
- The increase in AFM cases in 2014 coincided with a national outbreak of severe respiratory illness among people caused by enterovirus D68 (EV-D68). Among the people confirmed with AFM, CDC did not consistently detect EV-D68 in every patient.
- During 2015, CDC did not receive information about large EV-D68 outbreaks in the United States, and laboratories reported only limited EV-D68 detections to CDC’s National Enterovirus Surveillance System (NESS). During 2016, CDC was informed of a few localized clusters in the United States. Learn more about EV-D68.
