Rare polio-like illness has US on alert

‘DRC Ebola outbreak not global emergency’

WASHINGTON, Oct 18, (AFP): A rare disease that peaked this autumn and paralyzes its victims – mainly children – in ways similar to polio has put health authorities on alert across the United States.

There is no known specific treatment for the disease, known as acute flaccid myelitis (AFM).

Some patients who contracted AFM quickly recover, while others end up with paralyzed arms and legs. One child who contracted AFM – which affects the nervous system via the spinal cord – died last year.

A few dozen cases of AFM have been reported in August and September following similar peaks in 2014 and 2016 during the fall, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday.

“This is a mystery so far and we haven’t solved it yet,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Since 2014, there have been 386 confirmed AFM cases, overwhelmingly in patients under the age of 18. Figures show that the average age of a AFM patient is four.

This year there have been 62 confirmed cases – a figure comparable to 2014 and 2016, the CDC said. The season however has not ended, and several possible AFM cases remain under investigation.

The origin of the disease is also a mystery, but despite similarities it is not the polio virus.

Tested

“CDC has tested every stool specimen from the AFM patients, and none of the specimens have tested positive for the poliovirus,” Messonnier said.

The disease may be caused by an enterovirus or rhinovirus, but these viruses have been found only in a few patients, which does not explain the increased number of cases at the end of summer.

Neither does geography seem to be a factor, as confirmed cases are spread across 22 of the 50 US states.

“We don’t know who may be at higher risk for developing AFM or the reasons why they may be at higher risk. We don’t fully understand the long-term consequences of AFM,” Messonnier said.

One thing scientists do know is that only one person in a million is infected with AFM each year in the United States.

“Parents need to know that AFM is very rare, even with the increase in cases that we are seeing now,” Messonnier said.

“We know that some patients diagnosed with AFM have recovered quickly and some continue to have paralysis and require ongoing care.”

A deadly Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is deeply worrying, but does not yet merit being labelled a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

“Based on the current context ... the committee recommended that the current Ebola outbreak in DRC does not constitute a public health emergency of international concern,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“I have accepted the recommendation of the committee,” he told reporters in Geneva following a meeting of the UN agency’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee.

In the WHO’s parlance, “a public health emergency of international concern” is an “extraordinary event” in which a disease may spread across borders and requires a vigorous international response.

Tedros stressed though that the decision not to use the label for the epidemic that has killed at least 139 people in DRC’s violence-torn North Kivu region since August “does not mean that WHO is not taking the outbreak seriously.”

“We will not rest until the outbreak is finished,” he said, voicing hope that the robust response already in place could halt the spread of the virus “within this year”.

Robert Steffen, Chair of the Emergency Committee, also voiced “some optimism” that the outbreak would be brought under control within a “reasonable time”.

Outbreak

He told reporters though that the committee still has great concerns about the outbreak, and stressed that if the situation worsens the WHO could still decide to declare a global emergency.

The latest outbreak – the 10th in DR Congo since Ebola was first detected there in 1976 – emerged in the highlyrestive northeastern region of North Kivu, which is home to a clutch of armed groups.

So far, 216 cases have been reported, including 181 that have been laboratory confirmed. A total of 139 people have died, meaning the fatality rate stands at 64 percent, WHO said.