Via The Canberra Times: Five children hit by polio-like paralysis. Excerpt:
An outbreak of an infectious virus that can cause polio-like paralysis is concerning health officials.
The same virus, a strain of enterovirus 71 (EV71), has led to hundreds of deaths in China.
Five children, including one in Victoria, have suffered from a polio-like paralysis this year because of a severe complication from the strain, known as C4a. Dr Bruce Thorley, of the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, said the strain had been circulating in Asia for some time but was only now being detected in Australia.
Strains of EV71 that usually circulate here cause milder symptoms such as rashes, fever and blisters on the hands, feet and mouth (commonly known as hand-foot-and-mouth disease, or HFMD). But the C4a strain could, in rare cases, cause severe neurological complications such as inflammation of the brain -meningitis and encephalitis - and paralysis, Dr Thorley said.
In NSW, 27 children who were admitted to hospital with meningitis or encephalitis in the month to May 12 had an EV71 infection.
Dr Thorley cautioned that strains of EV71 often circulated in the population and most infections caused no noticeable symptoms in adults or children.
"But now, to have such a number of positive detections including paralysis, I would regard it as an outbreak," he said.
He said four of the cases of paralysis were in NSW and one in Victoria, with investigation of all cases of paralysis in children being co-ordinated in collaboration with the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit.
