While most folks have had their eyes diverted by the Ebola scare, another illness is hitting hundreds of kids especially hard this year. Some have become paralyzed by the illness, and others have died.
Calling it the “mystery illness,” doctors say it is a strain of viruses called Enterovirus 68, and it has hit kids from California to the East Coast. First diagnosed in the U.S. in 1962, the virus has been rare here. But this year it has exploded for unknown reasons.
As Breitbart News reported, since mid-September, more and more cases of this mysterious respiratory illness have broken out, but as one expert has noted, government officials have been “real tight-lipped” about the outbreaks.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, recently said that we might want to look to the recent influx of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants for a root cause.
On September 17, Dr. Orient said:
We don’t know where it’s coming from. …Are there immigrants from Central America, where this disease has allegedly been prevalent before? Should we be [looking at] the virus to see whether it’s like what’s been found in some of these countries that are just sending waves of children across our border and they haven’t been quarantined long enough to make sure they’re not sick?
Whatever the cause, in the last weeks, cases of the illness have mounted, as more than 40 states have reported hundreds of cases, usually in children between 10 and 15 years of age.
Several children in Colorado have suffered paralysis due to the viral infection, with as many as nine struck with polio-like symptoms in Aurora, Colorado.
There have also been deaths. One child in Rhode Island died from complications from the virus. Ten-year-old Emily Ortrando reportedly died of a staph infection due to an Enterovirus 68 infection. Also, late in September, a four-year-old child in New Jersey perished from the virus.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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