This virus is to be blamed for mysterious illness and paralysis in children

Scientists have found the strongest evidence yet that a virus is to blame for a mysterious illness that can start like the sniffles but quickly paralyse children. The poliolike syndrome, called acute flaccid myelitis or AFM, is very rare. Since the first reports from California in 2012, the US has experienced an increasingly bigger outbreak every other year, from late summer into fall.

Doctors have a chief suspect but proof that it’s the culprit germ has been frustratingly elusive. So researchers tried a new trick: They checked patients’ spinal fluid for signs the immune system had fought an invading virus. Sure enough, kids who got sick harboured antibodies that target enteroviruses, just the viral family specialists believe is to blame.

This is circumstantial evidence that this is what’s going on, but it’s a powerful piece of circumstantial evidence,” said a Dr., who helped lead the research. His team reported the findings Monday in Nature Medicine.

Nailing down a suspect is key to better diagnosis and eventually finding a way to prevent or treat the illness, said study co-author and a neurologist,  whose own son developed AFM at age 4. “If you don’t have a cause, you can’t have a vaccine,” he noted. Wilson developed “a good enough microscope, in a sense, to find things they suspected were there.”

Some 590 cases of the ailment have been confirmed in the US since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began counting in 2014. Cases spiked that year and in 2016 and last year, with just a few in the intervening years. So far, there have been 22 this year.

Bove’s son, Luca Waugh, illustrates the pattern: His whole family caught a cold in the summer of 2014 — and a few days later; Luca woke up with weakness in his neck that travelled down his shoulder. Despite fast hospitalisation, within days he had body-wide paralysis and trouble breathing. He recovered gradually, and today still has some paralysis in his neck, shoulder and arm.

Either a germ or the body’s reaction to a germ was damaging nerves in the spinal cords of patients like Luca. The CDC noted that AFM spikes coincided with seasons when certain strains of enteroviruses — named EV-D68 and EV-A71 — were causing widespread respiratory illnesses. The problem: Doctors seldom found those viruses in the patients’ spinal fluid, leaving doubt about the link.

Antibodies programmed to track specific germs only wind up in spinal fluid if they fought infection there — what Wilson’s team set out to find. The researchers customized a Harvard-developed tool to search for evidence of hundreds of viruses simultaneously — including herpes, measles, chickenpox, Zika and a whole list of enteroviruses.  Add some spinal fluid, and any antibodies present would stick to their target, able to be identified.  

In tests of spinal fluid from 42 AFM patients and 58 children with unrelated neurologic illnesses, only enterovirus-targeting antibodies emerged as the potential culprit. Nearly three-fourths of patients harbored them, compared to less than 10 per cent of other children. Further work is underway to narrow down the specific strains.

“Before we develop antivirals or potential vaccines, you really want to prove the viruses are causing disease,” said a infectious disease chief at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, who wasn’t involved with the new study. “It’s pretty compelling” evidence.

Mysteries remain. Enteroviruses are hugely common, and doctors don’t know why only a tiny fraction of those infected develop the ailment, Williams said. And as 2020 approaches, specialists are girding for another possible spike next summer. “There’s a lot of dread,” the researcher said.

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Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Hand -foot-and-mouth disease, is a viral disease seen mostly in children as compared to adults. It is a disease  which causes painful blister and sores in mouth, hand and feet. Blisters may sometimes result in legs and buttocks along with sore throat and fever. The disease usually lasts about a week and can happen at any time of the year. Hand-foot-and-mouth disease is not same as foot-and-mouth disease that happens in animals.

Causes

Hand-foot-and-mouth disease is a viral disease caused by enterovirus. The disease is contagious and easily spreads through sneezing and coughing. You can also get the infection if you come in contact with the infected stool. After the exposure to the virus, it takes about three to seven days for the symptoms to appear.

Symptoms

The illness begins with tiredness or fever. The child may also get a sore throat. Within a couple of days of exposure to the virus, the child may get blisters or sores on his/her arms, feet and mouth. Sometimes the blister can appear on their buttocks. Sometimes, the child may experience skin rash before getting blisters. In a week the blisters break, crust over and go away. It can spread from the child to his or her parents. In some cases, the patient may not experience any kind of symptoms.

Treatments

Usually treatment is not required for hand-foot-and-mouth disease. You need to provide care to relieve the symptoms of the diseases. Take care not to give foods like spicy or acidic foods that can make the blisters more painful. Also, make sure you child is consuming plenty of fluids. Give them ice cream or ice pops to help with the blisters and soreness in the mouth. Ibuprofen and acetaminophen are usually prescribed by doctors to treat the fever and pain.

Since it is a contagious disease, do not allow your kids to attend school to prevent the illness from spreading. Also, make sure you are washing your hands and using sanitizer while taking care of your kid to avoid the disease.

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.
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A Vaccine For Type 1 Diabetes Begins Human Trials in 2018

A prototype vaccine, decades in the making, that could prevent type 1 diabetes in children is ready to start clinical trials in 2018.

It's not a cure, and it won't eliminate the disease altogether, but the vaccine is expected to provide immunity against a virus that has been found to trigger the body's defences into attacking itself, potentially reducing the number of new diabetes cases each year.

Over two decades of research has already provided solid evidence linking a type of virus called coxsackievirus B1 with an autoimmune reaction that causes the body to destroy cells in its own pancreas.

The type 1 form of diabetes – not to be confused with the more prevalent type 2 variety that tends to affect individuals later in life – is a decreased ability to produce the insulin used by the body's cells to absorb glucose out of the blood.

This loss of insulin is the result of pancreatic tissue called beta cells being destroyed by the body's own immune system, often within the first few years of life.

It's something of a mystery as to why the body identifies beta cells as foreign, though there could be a genetic link producing variations of human leukocyte markers, which act as the cell's 'ID tags'.

No doubt it's complex, and there are numerous ways this process can be triggered. One example established by virologist is an infection by a type of enterovirus.

Enteroviruses are nasty pieces of work; you might be most familiar with polio, but they can also cause hand, foot and mouth disease, meningitis and myocarditis. There has been suspicion of a link between this group of pathogens and diabetes for a number of years, but it took time to nail down the prime suspects.

In 2014, the team used a pair of studies on children with type 1 diabetes to show that at least one of the six viruses in the B group of coxsackieviruses was associated with the condition.

Enteroviruses are surprisingly common in newborns, with the study finding that around a quarter of the 444 known enterovirus infections in 2007 were caused by coxsackievirus B1 (CVB1).

And for some of those children, it could have been the start of a life-long, incurable condition.

"One can estimate from the generated data that less than 5 percent of CVB1-infected children go on to develop type 1 diabetes," the researchers wrote in their 2014 study.

That might not seem like a lot, but it does suggest each year hundreds of infants around the globe develop type 1 diabetes. If the other members of the CVB group also contribute to beta cell autoimmunity – which they might – the numbers could be higher.

If all goes well, this newly developed vaccine could put a stop to that.

"Already now it is known that the vaccine is effective and safe on mice," says the author.

"The developing process has now taken a significant leap forward as the next phase is to study the vaccine in humans."

Pre-clinical trials are of course just the first step. The next phase will involve testing on healthy adult humans, just to map out any complications.

As a bonus, the vaccine could help reduce other enterovirus infections.

"Additionally, the vaccine would protect from infections caused by enteroviruses such as the common cold, myocarditis, meningitis and ear infections," says the author.

It could be another eight years before we see whether the vaccine does what it's supposed to do, so we shouldn't be expecting anything revolutionary too soon.

Earlier this year, researchers identified an immature cell in the pancreas which can potentially be encouraged to take up the job of lost mature beta cells.

There will be no single cure, treatment, or prevention which will gives us a diabetes-free world.

Between 20 and 40 million people worldwide live with type 1 diabetes. A vaccine like this might not end the disease, but if it works it's certainly going to be a big step forward.
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