Transcript for Mysterious illness leaves children paralyzed
Bacack now with that race to find answers after six children were struck by a polio-like disease in Minnesota in the last three weeks. Gio Benitez has more. Reporter: The illness is pretty rare, less than 400 cases in the U.S. Over the past four years but this morning, these six cases have health officials scratching their heads and desperate for answers. This morning, an unfolding medical mystery in Minnesota after six kids are diagnosed with a sudden polio-like illness. He started complaining of just really bad neck stiffness. He couldn’t move his neck and then his left arm. Reporter: 7-year-old Quinton hill is one of those children diagnosed with acute glass sit myelitis or afm. We thought it was a dead arm like laying on it funny and didn’t think much of it at first but a couple hours later we started getting concerned. Reporter: The department of health there saying they seen at most one case of it a year. This is six cases in the past three weeks. State health officials now working to figure out why. Because there isn’t a particular germ or pathogen that we know that causes it, and there isn’t a treatment for it, it’s really pretty challenging for public health to address. Reporter: And it’s an incredibly serious illness. The CDC says afm presents like polio or west nile. Symptoms include weakness, loss of muscle tone, facial droop, difficulty swallowing, slurred speech and in severe cases paralysis. This is obviously a very serious illness and what we’ve told parents is, if you have a child who’s exhibiting these symptoms it’s important they get seen and evaluated right away. Reporter: A similar spike in cases in Seattle back in 2016 climbed the life of 6-year-old Daniel Ramirez and Quinton’s father says he’s fighting with all he has got. We know he’s super resilient. If anyone gets it back we firmly believe he will. Reporter: Health officials don’t know what caused this recent uptick. Now, the father of another child in the hospital tells us his 5-year-old daughter Sofia is walking and is in higher spirits. They hope to move her to a rehab center very soon and we hope so too. We’re thinking of all the children affected. Is there a cure? No cure right now and that’s why it’s so important that these health officials figure out what’s causing this. Yeah, they need to do that. Gio, thanks.
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