by Joseph Cabral
figures by Rebecca Senft
cover by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images
In the middle of the 20th century, poliovirus could be found in every country of the world. Infection by poliovirus can lead to a severe disease called poliomyelitis, or simply polio, in which the patients become paralyzed when poliovirus inflames the spinal cord. To great public relief, the first polio vaccine was licensed in 1955 and mass vaccination campaigns began immediately. As a result, the last known case of poliomyelitis in the US was recorded in 1979, and the US was declared polio-free in 1994. Decades of aggressive worldwide vaccination campaigns have driven poliovirus to the brink of extinction. Today, poliovirus can only be found in 3 countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. According to the World Health Organization, only 22 cases of polio were reported worldwide in 2017. However, recent reports of children exhibiting a polio-like paralytic condition has sent health officials and researchers scrambling for answers.
The condition is called acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM. With over 300 reports of AFM from this year alone (158 confirmed cases as of Dec 14), the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently launched an AFM Task Force to investigate this very serious disease.
Acute Flaccid Myelitis: The Replacement Polio
Taking health officials off guard, a spike in polio-like disease was first described in a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the CDC in October of 2014. The report detailed clusters of children in California and Colorado suffering from acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), a neurological illness that results in the sudden onset of paralysis (Figure 1). AFP can have a wide range of causes including environmental toxins, genetic conditions, and infection by viruses. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to peer inside the body, investigators discovered that all of the patients exhibited inflammation of the spinal cord (referred to as myelitis) in a specific neuron-dense region known as grey matter. This specific form of myelitis is usually the calling card of poliovirus infection. Surprisingly, though, investigators found no evidence of poliovirus. There have been a few reports of polio-like myelitis also occurring during West Nile virus and adenovirus infections, but investigators could not find evidence of infection by these viruses either. With no suspect to blame for the sudden spike in polio-like paralysis, the term acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) was coined to encompass all AFP conditions that display polio-like myelitis.
If Not Poliovirus, Then What is Causing AFM?
While the CDC has yet to publicly confirm what is driving the sudden spike of AFM, viral infection is suspected to be the likely cause. Poliovirus belongs to a group of viruses known as enteroviruses. Enteroviruses usually replicate in the gastrointestinal tract of infected humans and spread person-to-person through the fecal-oral route. It’s one of the reasons why we should really remember to wash our hands after using the restroom. Infections by most enteroviruses, including poliovirus, usually present with mild or no symptoms at all. Sometimes, though, enterovirus infections can spread to motor neurons, which are the cells that control muscle movement. This type of infection is actually a rare event, a fluke in the viral lifecycle. In fact, fewer than 1% of poliovirus infections ever spread to motor neurons, and only a handful of enteroviruses have the capacity to infect neurons at all. But when they do, the results are dramatic and severe, often involving paralysis. So, when cases of AFM began to suddenly appear in the absence of poliovirus, investigators turned their eyes toward another enterovirus making its own dramatic entrance.
In September of 2014, a month before the initial reports of AFM, an outbreak of a previously rare enterovirus, EV-D68, resulted in severe respiratory infections and many hospitalizations across the US. A possible link between EV-D68 and AFM was uncovered when 67% of the samples from the Colorado AFM cluster in 2014 tested positive for EV-D68.
EV-D68: A Misfit Enterovirus Learns New Tricks
First identified as causing bronchitis in California in 1962, EV-D68 is a little different than most enteroviruses. EV-D68 is unstable in acidic conditions. This means that EV-D68 is unable to survive exposure to stomach acid and does not replicate in the gastrointestinal tract of humans like most enteroviruses. EV-D68 preferentially replicates at a temperature around 33°C (91.4°F) and has adapted to infect the upper respiratory pathway where the body temperature is cooler because of breathing (Figure 2). Infection results in cold-like symptoms. Rather than spreading by the fecal-oral route like poliovirus, EV-D68 spreads from respiratory tract secretions like the common cold or flu. Interestingly, greater than 90% of AFM patients were reported to have a mild respiratory illness or fever shortly before the onset of paralysis. Moreover, like AFM, most cases of EV-D68 are reported in the fall, and outbreaks of both EV-D68 and AFM have been following the same biennial pattern: 2014, 2016, 2018 (Figure 3).
Given the appearance of cold-like symptoms just prior to the onset of AFM and the outbreak pattern shared by EV-D68 and AFM, research groups from around the world have been investigating the link between AFM and EV-D68. In January of this year, a study from the University of New South Wales in Australia demonstrated a causal relationship between EV-D68 infection and AFM using the Bradford Hill criteria, the same set of 9 epidemiological tests the CDC used to link zika virus infection to developmental defects in children.
Supporting this relationship, a study released in October of 2018 by scientists at the University of California San Diego showed that at least one of the currently circulating strains of EV-D68 can infect nerve cells and cause paralysis in mice. Conversely, a strain of EV-D68 isolated in 1962 could not induce paralysis. Uncovering clues as to why EV-D68 has only recently developed into a public health concern, the same group of researchers identified 21 mutations in this newer strain. These mutations are thought to contribute to the increased severity of respiratory illness caused by EV-D68 infection and the ability of EV-D68 to infect neurons and cause paralysis.
AFM is a Global Health Concern
There is currently no vaccine for EV-D68 in humans, but a group of researchers in China recently reported that an inactivated form of EV-D68 could protect mice against the virus, giving hope to future vaccine research and development. Until a vaccine can be developed, the best line of defense is hygiene, public awareness, and continued surveillance by the CDC and other monitoring organizations in countries where AFM has been linked to EV-D68. So far, that list includes France, Norway, Canada, the UK, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, and Japan. Recognizing AFM and EV-D68 as global public health concerns now and proactively putting resources into research and vaccine development may help avert a public health crisis in the future. While AFM is a dramatic and debilitating condition, it is fortunately rare. However, the biennial pattern of outbreaks is likely to continue. Expect to hear about EV-D68 and AFM again in 2020.
Joseph Cabral is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Program in Virology at Harvard University.
Rebecca Senft is a fourth-year Program in Neuroscience PhD student at Harvard University who studies the circuitry and function of serotonin neurons in the mouse
For more information:
- For up to date information on AFM cases in the US, please visit the CDC AFM Investigation Page.
- For more information on the response of the research and medical communities to the AFM crisis, check out this STAT News article.
- To learn more about EV-D68 and how it recently evolved the ability to infect neurons, see this mini-review.
- Check out this CDC page for what parents should know about EV-D68.
Tell me about this how to start and tell me
Very good response!
Yes, they stopped with the agent orange and spraying children while playing in the park and in swimming pools with DDT and polio cases dropped right down. Oh, and they started vaccinating also…
Read, “The Moth In the Iron Lung” it’s a book on Polio that does a good job explaining the history of the disease and may shed light on new manifestations.
I have been wanting this book. Thank you for the reminder!
I found this article very interesting, it has a lot of info i need to know, thanks for sharing
What if the inflammation is NOT caused by a virus. It’s inflammation just the same. Is intrathecal steroid infusion being used? If I want to reduce inflammation in the brain/spinal chord, that is my focus. That, albeit touted as a symptom, is truly the cause of the symptoms. Digging deeper for the “why” needs to happen, but appropriate treatment to reverse the inflammation is a priority for bedside physicians and nurses. The enterovirus theory is just that, theory, and it’s not a smart focus in my opinion. The IPV vax may be triggering the inflammation. The time line is right. Young childre, often around 4 get another polio vax (IPV). Vaccines are not blameless as you will often hear, and I’m a health care provider. I know the actual stats, and they have quited by a PR campaign. I see side effects that are often impressive. Realistically, the IPV may be causing an immune response in the CNS, which makes perfect sense. I’ve seen the varicella vax cause a chicken pox like rash and 105 temp. On further research, I did find an interesting article in a science journal that offers evidence of the IPV causing polio like symptoms. If you can search google- scholar, you may run across the info. I pulled mine from the NIH. If this is the case, then the risk is not worth the prevention until we rule out that we are causing this. Interestingly, I’ve not see a retrospective study to inform the percentage of AFM cases with vaccination status. That study needs to happen as it’s a linear run from a vaccine that prevents a paralytic disease by introducing antibodies of a paralytic disease to the child’s immune system. Hoof beats are usually horses. Change is loved by all in medicine. We have so many inside the box thinkers practicing defensive medicine, patients suffer without the proper investigations in to cause. As someone with many years in healthcare and research, I am still impressed with how blinded medicine chooses to be under the guise of rigorous research, and testing for “evidence based practice.” In some instances (like AFM) the common sense factor needs to come into evidence. You cannot rule it out if you don’t…well, rule it out. While enterovirus may play a part (or be a non effectual coincidence), we can’t ignore other, more obvious causes, a a full epidemiological study has to happen using all possible resources, and without bias r/t funding (NO pharmaceutical companies funding this one). This would make an excellent research project for graduate schools..Nurse Practitioner’s are less connected to the big money pharm/doc network and considered less corruptible, using a patient centered approach, and rarely in the research for profit loop.
Very good points and so true that studies need to be done to prove “we” aren’t causing this. There needs to be proof.
Why would you need one? The article stated this was extremely rare. If people were vaccinated for this there would be a chance, like with all vaccines, that there could be side effects. So in order to save the few people with a rare disorder we would also be risking injury to more people. So we possibly save a few and injure more? That doesn’t make sense. We need to stop this cycle of trying to rescue people and fix problems we can’t control and don’t understand, while simultaneously injurying others. The benefits don’t outweigh the risks to the whole group. Figuring out what causes this would be a good start. The flu mist is given in the fall and could cause problems such as respitory infections.
Very good response!
What is ‘the flu mist’?
Can someone please explain to me why, given that we KNOW the pathogen and that we know how to make vaccines, why we cannot expect a vaccine by early 2020?
Because vaccines cause it.