Polio-like illness leaves kids struggling for years. Some never recover.
Health officials have been unable to link cases of a paralyzing condition that affects mostly children with any single specific virus. It causes symptoms ranging from muscle weakness to complete paralysis.
Acute flaccid myelitis may be on the rise again on 2018. Parents of kids affected in past waves know recovery is difficult and unpredictable.
Initially, the wave of AFM cases was linked with a virus that was also circulating, a distant relative of the polio virus called EV-D68. It usually causes mild symptoms typical of viral infections, but for reasons that remain a mystery, EV-D68 can attack the nervous system, causing dizziness, weakness and even paralysis.
Any virus can cause neurological symptoms, and now several others, including one called EV-A71, have also been linked with the paralyzing condition. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been unable to find any single common cause
