Enterovirus remains mystery to doctors…“This is a newly evolving virus for us.”
By:Lindsay Kalter
BostonHerald.com
Thursday, October 2, 2014
The death of a 10-year-old Rhode Island girl suffering from the enterovirus-68 — along with mysterious polio-like symptoms seen in several patients — only deepens the mystery doctors are confronting as they battle the respiratory epidemic infecting kids nationwide.
“This is a newly evolving virus for us. We’re learning as we go along,” said Dr. Thomas B. Kinane, a pediatric specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The Rhode Island Health Department announced yesterday that the child died of a staph infection associated with the enterovirus-68, which doctors say is an extremely rare complication.
“We are all heartbroken to hear about the death of one of Rhode Island’s children,” state Health Department Director Dr. Michael Fine said in a statement. “Many of us will have EV-D68. Most of us will have very mild symptoms and all but very few will recover quickly and completely.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also investigating a possible link between the virus and paralysis. That link has been seen in four potentially infected patients at Boston Children’s Hospital, which has treated more than 100 suspected cases of the virus.
But given that the virus only recently became widespread — staying relatively contained within small regions before it began sweeping the nation in August — there is not enough information for doctors to make any definitive links, said Dr. Benjamin Kruskal, chief of Infectious Disease at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates.
“Every infectious outbreak behaves differently, and this isn’t a kind of infectious agent that we have a lot of experience with,” Kruskal said.
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