![]() ![]() But many people who never developed AFM symptoms also have the virus in their blood. It is also taking scientists an unusually long time to determine the cause of the illness, says William Weldon, a microbiologist at the CDC.īlood samples taken from many of the people with AFM contain the virus. They have occurred every other year since, though researchers have yet to find a definitive explanation for the pattern. This year’s AFM outbreak started in October, and is the third in a series of outbreaks in the United States that began in 2014. But researchers are developing similar tests to help pinpoint other conditions that can be tricky to diagnose, including tuberculosis and bacterial meningitis. Host-response diagnostic tests haven’t been used in the clinic yet. The approach could lead to better diagnostics and provide hints about new treatments. Scientists are trying to identify the culprit by using a combination of host-response diagnostics - which look at how the immune system responds to pathogens - and machine-learning analysis. Most of the evidence suggests that an enterovirus called EV-D68 1 is causing the illness, but researchers haven’t been able to find the pathogen in the spinal fluid of sick children. Many of those who develop the illness never recover. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, has confirmed 134 cases of AFM in the United States so far this year. The disease, called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), causes limb weakness and paralysis that resembles the symptoms of polio. Infectious-disease researchers hunting for the cause of a mysterious illness that is paralysing children are combining machine learning with a new gene-sequencing technique to pin down the culprit. People with acute flaccid myelitis experience weakness in their limbs and paralysis.
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