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UCSF scientists have discovered an evidence that same virus is causing the clusters of sudden onset paralysis which has left hundreds of US children with severe respiratory infections past year.
Most cases are found in California and Colorado.
The virus is the Enterovirus D68 that causes symptoms like cold but may cause serious illness.
It is appearing to have mutated to become polio like.
Dr Charles Chiu, lead author and head of the viral diagnostics laboratory at UCSF said, “The changes were always in the direction to make it more similar to polio, I want to make sure we don’t alarm people. There’s a chance this virus may never come back, which would be the best-case scenario. But we certainly need to be prepared.”
Dr. Emmanuelle Waubant, a UCSF neurologist who have treated some of the first California patients with sudden-onset paralysis but was not part of Chiu’s research said, “It’s a small study, and we’re not showing causality yet, but we’re really inching that way, this work is definitely going to encourage investigators to go back to the bench and try to really understand better the neurological complication potential of this virus.”
Chiu said, “It’s hard to predict what will happen this year or next year. Certainly enterorvirus will crop up again, the question is will it be this strain or another strain? This year will be very informative.”
Doctors said it is yet to be seen how concerning this virus can be.
