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美国官员担心残疾儿童的情况可能正在蔓延

时间:2019-04-08 18:46:07

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US Officials Worry Condition Disabling Children May Be Spreading

One morning last autumn, four-year-old Joey Wilcox did not feel right when he woke up. The boy had lost feeling on the left side of his face.

It was the first sign of a much more serious condition.

Three days later, Joey was in a hospital, unable to move his arms or legs or sit up. Tests failed to identify a cause. Doctors feared he might lose the ability to breathe.

“It’s devastating1,” his father, Jeremy Wilcox of Virginia, told the Associated Press. “Your healthy child can catch a cold — and then become paralyzed.”

Joey survived, but still suffers some of the effects. He was one of 228 confirmed victims of acute flaccid myelitis, known as AFM, in the United States last year.

AFM is a rare, mysterious and sometimes deadly paralyzing disorder2. The number of cases seems to rise and then fall every other year. The condition is beginning to worry public health officials because it is striking more and more children.

Anthony Fauci is head of the U.S. government’s National Institute of Allergy3 and Infectious Diseases. He said AFM appears similar to polio, another paralyzing disease. Polio affected4 only small numbers of people for centuries before it infected larger populations in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Fauci prepared a report about AFM that appeared earlier this month in the medical publication mBio.

Fauci said it is unlikely the disease will become as bad as polio, which struck tens of thousands of U.S. children every year before a vaccine5 became available in the 1950s. Yet he warned: “Don’t assume that it’s going to stay at a couple of hundred cases every other year.”

AFM cases have been reported in other countries, including Canada, France, Britain and Norway. But the size and shape of the U.S. outbreaks seem very different. More than 550 Americans have been struck over the past 10 years. The oldest was 32 years old. More than 90 percent of the patients were children, most around four, five or six years of age.

Many had a higher than normal body temperature and what seemed like a common viral infection. They seemed to recover, but then developed paralysis6. In some cases, it started in small ways — for example, a finger that suddenly would not move. Some went on to lose the ability to eat or breathe.

Many families say their children have regained7 at least some movement in affected body parts, but stories of complete recovery are unusual. Health officials cannot say how many recovered completely, partly or not at all, or how many have died. Yet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, says deaths are rare.

Scientists suspect the disorder is being caused mainly by a virus that experts identified more than 55 years ago. They believe the virus may have changed to become more dangerous, but have yet to prove that.

Doctors have been using a number of treatments, such as antiviral medications and antibiotics8. But CDC officials say there is no clear evidence they work.

A growing number of experts agree that physical therapy does make a difference. A leading expert on the condition is Benjamin Greenberg of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

“These kids can continue to recover very slowly, year over year. ... It’s driven by how much therapy they do,” he noted9.

Joey Wilcox’s father said his son made huge improvements that way. Joey can run and use his arms. Still, the muscles in his right leg and shoulder are weak, and he still has left-side facial paralysis.

Other stories are tragic10.

Katie Bustamante’s son Alex developed AFM in 2016. The California woman realized something was wrong when she asked her son, then five years old, why he was not eating. Alex said that his thumb had stopped working.

That morning was the start of 17 months of hospital stays, operations, therapy, and struggles with healthcare providers to find a way to restore his breathing. It ended one morning last May, when Alex died of problems related to the disorder.

Government officials need to step up, Bustamante said.

“I want them to research it and find the cause, and I want them to find a way to prevent it,” she said. “This is growing. This shouldn’t be happening.”

More and more experts feel strongly that the main cause is an enterovirus called EV-D68. Enteroviruses are a large family of viruses, some of which, such as polio, can damage the central nervous system. Many others cause mild problems or none at all.

Researchers have found a link between cases of AFM and a rise in breathing disorders11 caused by EV-D68.

In the United States, doctors began reporting breathing conditions tied to EV-D68 in 1987. But that was usually no more than about 12 cases in any given year.

Then, in what may have been one of the first signs of an AFM outbreak, a 5-year-old boy in New Hampshire died in 2008. First, he developed sensitivity around his neck and a high body temperature, then weakened arms and deadened legs. The boy had EV-D68, and researchers linked his death to the virus.

The first real outbreak of AFM cases hit in 2014, when 120 were confirmed, with the largest numbers in California and Colorado.

Cases dropped to 22 in 2015, jumped to 149 in 2016, and fell again, to 35 in 2017. Last year, they reached 228, a number that may grow because many are still being investigated. Just four cases have been confirmed in 2019 so far.

CDC officials consider a health problem to be AFM based on exams and other evidence showing a special kind of damage to the spinal12 cord. Proof of an enterovirus infection is not required for a case to be counted, mainly because such evidence has been hard to come by. To date, CDC investigators13 have been able to find evidence of enteroviruses in the spinal fluid of only four of 558 confirmed cases.

Scientists are using more powerful spinal-fluid tests in hopes of better establishing the connection between AFM and EV-D68. That, in turn, could lead to more organized efforts on treatments and maybe even a vaccine.

I’m Susan Shand.

And I’m Pete Musto.

Words in This Story

devastating – adj. causing extreme emotional pain

cold – n. a common illness that affects the nose, throat, and eyes and that usually causes coughing and sneezing

paralyzed – adj. a person or animal that is unable to move or feel all or part of the body

assume – v. to think that something is true or probably true without knowing that it is true

outbreak(s) – n. a sudden start or increase of fighting or disease

physical therapy – n. the treatment of a disease or an injury of the muscles or joints14 with massage15, exercises and heat

sensitivity – n. the quality of being easily affected by something in a bad or unpleasant way

neck – n. the part of the body between the head and the upper chest

spinal cord – n. the large group of nerves which runs through the center of the spine and carries messages between the brain and the rest of the body


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1 devastating muOzlG     
adj.毁灭性的,令人震惊的,强有力的
参考例句:
  • It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
  • Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。
2 disorder Et1x4     
n.紊乱,混乱;骚动,骚乱;疾病,失调
参考例句:
  • When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后,他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
  • It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。
3 allergy 8Vpza     
n.(因食物、药物等而引起的)过敏症
参考例句:
  • He developed an allergy to pollen.他对花粉过敏。
  • The patient had an allergy to penicillin.该患者对青霉素过敏。
4 affected TzUzg0     
adj.不自然的,假装的
参考例句:
  • She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
  • His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。
5 vaccine Ki1wv     
n.牛痘苗,疫苗;adj.牛痘的,疫苗的
参考例句:
  • The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
  • She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。
6 paralysis pKMxY     
n.麻痹(症);瘫痪(症)
参考例句:
  • The paralysis affects his right leg and he can only walk with difficulty.他右腿瘫痪步履维艰。
  • The paralysis affects his right leg and he can only walk with difficulty.他右腿瘫痪步履维艰。
7 regained 51ada49e953b830c8bd8fddd6bcd03aa     
复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 ); 赢回; 重回; 复至某地
参考例句:
  • The majority of the people in the world have regained their liberty. 世界上大多数人已重获自由。
  • She hesitated briefly but quickly regained her poise. 她犹豫片刻,但很快恢复了镇静。
8 antibiotics LzgzQT     
n.(用作复数)抗生素;(用作单数)抗生物质的研究;抗生素,抗菌素( antibiotic的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • the discovery of antibiotics in the 20th century 20世纪抗生素的发现
  • The doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. 医生给我开了抗生素。
9 noted 5n4zXc     
adj.著名的,知名的
参考例句:
  • The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
  • Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。
10 tragic inaw2     
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的
参考例句:
  • The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
  • Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。
11 disorders 6e49dcafe3638183c823d3aa5b12b010     
n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 );凌乱;骚乱;(身心、机能)失调
参考例句:
  • Reports of anorexia and other eating disorders are on the increase. 据报告,厌食症和其他饮食方面的功能紊乱发生率正在不断增长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The announcement led to violent civil disorders. 这项宣布引起剧烈的骚乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
12 spinal KFczS     
adj.针的,尖刺的,尖刺状突起的;adj.脊骨的,脊髓的
参考例句:
  • After three days in Japan,the spinal column becomes extraordinarily flexible.在日本三天,就已经使脊椎骨变得富有弹性了。
  • Your spinal column is made up of 24 movable vertebrae.你的脊柱由24个活动的脊椎骨构成。
13 investigators e970f9140785518a87fc81641b7c89f7     
n.调查者,审查者( investigator的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • This memo could be the smoking gun that investigators have been looking for. 这份备忘录可能是调查人员一直在寻找的证据。
  • The team consisted of six investigators and two secretaries. 这个团队由六个调查人员和两个秘书组成。 来自《简明英汉词典》
14 joints d97dcffd67eca7255ca514e4084b746e     
接头( joint的名词复数 ); 关节; 公共场所(尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所) (非正式); 一块烤肉 (英式英语)
参考例句:
  • Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on gas mains. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在煤气的总管道上了。
  • Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on steam pipes. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在蒸气管道上了。
15 massage 6ouz43     
n.按摩,揉;vt.按摩,揉,美化,奉承,篡改数据
参考例句:
  • He is really quite skilled in doing massage.他的按摩技术确实不错。
  • Massage helps relieve the tension in one's muscles.按摩可使僵硬的肌肉松弛。

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