The Center for Disease Control still does not know the cause behind a strange, polio-like muscle weakness that affected 138 people last year, NBC News reported.
Acute flaccid myelitis, a rare condition that affects mostly children, tackles the nervous system and is characterized by a sudden weakness in one or more arms or legs, along with loss of muscle tone and decreased or absent reflexes, according to the CDC. Most patients have to be hospitalized and some are completely paralyzed.
"We have tested for over 250 different organisms that could be causing this," Tracy Ayers of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters Monday after a meeting with the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service. "We are also expanding to look at non-infectious diseases."
Initially, doctors thought there was a connection with Enterovirus 68, a member of the enterovirus family related to polio, but Ayers said EV-D68 is no longer a suspect. An increase in reported cases in 2016 has the CDC worried.
"After a decrease in 2015, acute flaccid myelitis cases increased during 2016 raising concerns of a resurgence," Ayers and colleagues wrote in a summary.
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