GUILLAIN-BARRE

This is a collection of symptoms, rather than a single disease.

They include rapidly progressive weakness, sometimes resulting in complete paralysis.

Recovery typically takes three to six months, though two-thirds never fully recover and it can be fatal.

It frequently follows another health problem such as food poisoning, flu, childbirth or surgery.

Two cases were triggered by the campylobacter outbreak from contaminated drinking water in Hawke’s Bay last year.