A mysterious polio-like disease has sickened as many as 127 people in the U.S.

Author: Aimee Cunningham / Source: Science News

U.S. health officials are investigating an outbreak of a mysterious, polio-like disease that causes weakness in one or more limbs.

The rare disease — acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM — has sickened 62 people, mostly children, in 22 states so far this year and is suspected in 65 more cases, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced October 16.

Starting with an outbreak of 120 cases that brought the disease to national attention in 2014, close to 400 cases have been confirmed in the United States. So far, the CDC has been unable to figure out what’s causing the outbreaks. “This is a mystery,” Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in Atlanta, said during a news briefing. “We haven’t solved it yet.”

Although the disease is frightening, fewer than one in a million people in the United States get AFM…

Click here to read more

The post A mysterious polio-like disease has sickened as many as 127 people in the U.S. appeared first on FeedBox.