Preventing infection

Because the cause of acute flaccid myelitis remains a mystery, health officials don’t have targeted prevention techniques.

Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends washing your hands often and provides a tip sheet for accurate hand-washing on its website at cdc.gov/handwashing/when-howhandwashing.html.

Dr. Fermin Leguen said it’s also important to avoid mosquito bites through measures that include eliminating standing pools of water and using repellent.

CDC has been investigating it since 2014, with reports showing the disease has peaked in the fall months in 2014, 2016 and now 2018.

No one knows why the disease spikes and ebbs the way it does, Leguen said. And it’s frustrating.

“It’s really difficult to really create a preventative campaign to protect your children and the population against this,” he said, adding that the disease isn’t contagious.

Leguen said that if a child is diagnosed with acute flaccid myelitis, it’s important for family members to reach out to friends and school officials to ensure that the patient isn’t shunned out of ignorance.

“Make sure that families and friends interact with this child so the child doesn’t feel isolated,” he said.

Contact Jessie Bekker at jbekker@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @jessiebekks on Twitter.