Rare illness in California afflicts children with polio-like symptoms

22:15, 9 October 2014

MOORPARK. KAZINFORM Lucian Olivera doesn't use canes because they slow him down. "They're wobbly," he says. Instead he prefers his walker or his leg braces-neither of which seem to slow down the rambunctious three-year-old. Though he can't walk, Lucian still bolts around the house, throwing and chasing his blue bouncy ball, unaware of the unusual circumstances that led to his disability.

Born more than 30 years after the last naturally occurring polio case was seen in the United States, Lucian was inflicted with a rare polio-like illness when he was 11 months old, leaving both of his legs paralyzed. He is not alone, the National Geographic reports. At least 20 confirmed cases of polio-like illness have been reported in the past two years scattered throughout California, leaving victims, mostly children, with paralyzed limbs. Doctors suspect a virus, but officials have yet to identify a clear cause. In recent weeks, polio-like illness cases have been reported outside of California. On September 26, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta issued an advisory for cases of limb weakness and spinal cord abnormalities seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), after cases of polio-like illness were identified in nine Colorado children. The following week, cases were identified in Michigan, Missouri, and Massachusetts. The resulting symptoms mirror the paralysis caused by polio. "Clinically, it is very, very similar to polio," said Keith Van Haren, a pediatric neurologist at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, in Palo Alto. The California cases all share three common similarities: acute flaccid paralysis, meaning the limbs go limp or the muscles become weak; injury to the spinal cord or one specific cell of the spinal cord; and negative tests for West Nile virus and poliovirus. In many of the cases, the first symptoms were respiratory problems, ranging from colds to infections. Van Haren first identified one of the polio-like cases, and has since worked with the California Department of Public Health to identify the other cases. Typically, Van Haren will see one case of acute flaccid paralysis every five years. Then, in 2012, he saw four cases, leading him to suspect there might be more. Van Haren contacted officials at the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to see if they knew of other children stricken by this crippling disease. "As a clinician at one center, it's not really possible to put together results," Van Haren said. "But the Department of Public Health was able to collect samples from all over the state, and do it very quickly."

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