Mystery Paralysis in Children is Perplexing Parents and Researchers

For most of the children who fell ill last year during an outbreak of enterovirus, the symptoms were relatively mild — fever, runny nose, coughing and sneezing.

But then there was this mystery: More than 100 kids suffered an unexplained, polio-like paralysis that struck quickly but even now continues to stump researchers and upend the lives of the families across the country.

For Priya Duggal and her colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University, the biggest puzzle is why those children became paralyzed while their brothers and sisters, who also were exposed to the virus, escaped largely unscathed.

“Is there something in these [paralyzed] kids that is different than the kids that are fine?” said Duggal, a genetic epidemiologist. “Maybe it’s the host, and the virus is a trigger that sets off the paralysis. . . . Maybe it’s something in their genetic makeup.”

Duggal and fellow researchers Aaron Milstone and David Thomas, who are gathering DNA from patients around country, are among the experts trying to find answers for families affected by the paralysis. (Read more about the mystery paralysis in children HERE)

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