Health officials in Colorado report that a unknown disease causing partial paralysis has hospitalized nearly a dozen children.
According to CNN, Children's Hospital Colorado said that 11 children had been admitted with similar symptoms:
Doctors don't know what is causing the mysterious neurological illness. They have identified 10 other children at the hospital with similar symptoms: limb weakness, cranial nerve dysfunction and abnormalities in the spinal gray matter.
One child's mother explained to CNN that her daughter's condition grew increasingly worse after beginning with a cough:
It started with a cough. Then the girl became lethargic and her fever rose. Her mom took her to the doctor, but the girl's blood work looked fine. Doctors sent her home to rest.
The next day, the girl complained of weakness in her arm.
"I thought that she was being dramatic and faking it," her mom said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
But over Labor Day weekend, the muscle weakness got worse. "She kept dropping her corn on the cob." Almost two weeks after the illness started, the girl was admitted to the hospital.
CNN adds that four children in Boston have displayed similar symptoms, while also noting that children in both Colorado and Boston have tested positive for entereovirus D68. The respiratory virus has resulted in the hospitalization of hundreds of children across the U.S.
Still, the virus was not found in all of the children experiencing partial paralysis in Colorado, and Dr. Samuel Dominguez told CNN that it could take "weeks" before officials establish a solid understanding of what's happening.
[via CNN]
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