First case of polio-like illness confirmed in Southern Nevada
Acute flaccid myelitis, a mysterious polio-like illness that can cause permanent paralysis and mostly affects children, has been confirmed in Nevada for the first time, the Southern Nevada Health District said Wednesday.
The federal government has counted 62 cases of the disease this year, a toll that now includes a child in Southern Nevada.
The district wouldn’t release information on the child or his or her condition but said the disease, characterized by muscle weakness and paralysis, affects roughly one person in a million.
“It’s important to keep in mind this is a very rare disease,” said Dr. Fermin Leguen, the health district’s chief medical officer and director of clinical services.
Still, it’s serious. Acute flaccid myelitis, also known as AFM, can cause permanent paralysis or respiratory failure in some patients, Leguen said.
There also is no treatment for acute flaccid myelitis. Instead, patients often undergo physical therapy to try to regain strength and muscle movement.
Scientists don’t know what causes it. Viruses, environmental toxins and genetic disorders all could play a role.
It commonly occurs as a complication after a viral infection, such as the flu, Leguen said.
Physicians are currently not required to report cases of acute flaccid myelitis to a government agency, so it’s likely cases have occurred in Nevada but passed under the radar, he said. The CDC has been investigating it since 2014, with reports showing the disease has peaked in the fall months in 2014, 2016 and now 2018.
No one knows why the disease spikes and ebbs the way it does, Leguen said. And it’s frustrating.
“It’s really difficult to really create a preventative campaign to protect your children and the population against this,” he said, adding that the disease isn’t contagious.
Leguen said that if a child is diagnosed with acute flaccid myelitis, it’s important for family members to reach out to friends and school officials to ensure that the patient isn’t shunned out of ignorance.
“Make sure that families and friends interact with this child so the child doesn’t feel isolated,” he said.
A previous version of this article incorrectly reported the reporting requirement for acute flaccid myelitis.
Contact Jessie Bekker at jbekker@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @jessiebekks on Twitter.
Preventing infection
Because the cause of acute flaccid myelitis remains a mystery, health officials don’t have targeted prevention techniques.
Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends washing your hands often and provides a tip sheet for accurate hand-washing on its website at https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/when-how-handwashing.html.
Leguen said it’s also important to avoid mosquito bites through measures that include eliminating standing pools of water and using bug repellent.
