Feb 6, 2024 07:54 PM
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/...-vanishes/
EXCERPTS: In the decade before, hundreds of young, healthy kids in the US abruptly felt their limbs go weak. Debilitating paralysis set in....
Researchers quickly linked the rare polio-esque condition to a virus known for causing respiratory infections, often mild colds: enterovirus D68, or EV-D68 for short. Identified decades ago, it's a relative of polio, one of the over 100 non-polio enteroviruses that float around ... when EV-D68 began surging, so did the mysterious paralyzing condition, called acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM...
[...] 2020 was the next year to watch, but SARS-CoV-2 came crashing in. Amid shutdowns, masks, distancing, and heightened hygiene, the pandemic obliterated normal transmission cycles of many other pathogens. ... At that point, there would be a four-year gap since the last EV-D68 surge, not the normal two-year gap. The pool of young children who had not been exposed to a recent wave of EV-D68 would be even larger than usual. They seemed like sitting ducks.
[...] In the summer, EV-D68 began rising. ... a warning to clinicians through its Health Alert Network: EV-D68 is rising around the country. Be on the lookout for AFM. It's coming.
But it never came. Though the EV-D68 wave came and went, AFM cases stayed low. [...] As expected, the virus came roaring back after its pandemic break. But there were only 47 cases of AFM that year, not hundreds. It was an off-year for the condition.
So what happened? Why didn't AFM surge along with EV-D68? In short, no one knows...(MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: In the decade before, hundreds of young, healthy kids in the US abruptly felt their limbs go weak. Debilitating paralysis set in....
Researchers quickly linked the rare polio-esque condition to a virus known for causing respiratory infections, often mild colds: enterovirus D68, or EV-D68 for short. Identified decades ago, it's a relative of polio, one of the over 100 non-polio enteroviruses that float around ... when EV-D68 began surging, so did the mysterious paralyzing condition, called acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM...
[...] 2020 was the next year to watch, but SARS-CoV-2 came crashing in. Amid shutdowns, masks, distancing, and heightened hygiene, the pandemic obliterated normal transmission cycles of many other pathogens. ... At that point, there would be a four-year gap since the last EV-D68 surge, not the normal two-year gap. The pool of young children who had not been exposed to a recent wave of EV-D68 would be even larger than usual. They seemed like sitting ducks.
[...] In the summer, EV-D68 began rising. ... a warning to clinicians through its Health Alert Network: EV-D68 is rising around the country. Be on the lookout for AFM. It's coming.
But it never came. Though the EV-D68 wave came and went, AFM cases stayed low. [...] As expected, the virus came roaring back after its pandemic break. But there were only 47 cases of AFM that year, not hundreds. It was an off-year for the condition.
So what happened? Why didn't AFM surge along with EV-D68? In short, no one knows...(MORE - missing details)