The poor state of the COVID-19 pandemic ensures that 2020 will become an infamous year in the history of human disease.
But this dark chapter had some surprises for which we can also be grateful. In a new study, researchers found that a planned outbreak in 2020 of a mysterious paralyzing disease did not materialize in time, and strangely enough, we have the coronavirus to thank.
The condition in question is called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM). This polio-like neurological disease mainly affects children, causing muscle weakness and, in some cases, permanent and even fatal paralysis.
For decades, cases of AFM were very rare, but in recent years there have been larger outbreaks in the United States and elsewhere, apparently recurring every two years.
A group of previous research has linked AFM to a rare virus called enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) and, although it is not yet known how the virus manifests the symptoms of AFM disease, the coincident outbreaks of the couple have led researchers think they are almost certainly related.
In the new research, a team led by Princeton University’s first author and modeler of infectious disease Sang Woo Park tracked EV-D68 case patterns between 2014 and 2019, with the virus experiencing significant resurgences in even years – 2014, 2016, and 2018, which are believed to be attributable to climate-based factors.
The data suggested for 2020 should have been another success.
“We predicted that a major outbreak of EV-D68, and therefore an outbreak of AFM, would still have been possible by 2020 under normal epidemiological conditions,” the researchers explain in their study.
Of course, as the world could not prove it, the epidemiological conditions of 2020 were anything but ordinary, and the expected combined success of EV-D68 and AFM never came.
In the United States, a country with significantly more COVID-19 cases than any other, the combined effects of physical distances, quarantine and isolation policies, and economic and civic shutdowns seemed not only to slow the spread of SARS- CoV-2, but also EV-D68 as well.
“Our preliminary analysis indicates that the response to the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have affected the dynamics of a 2020 EV-D68 outbreak,” the authors write.
According to the researchers, there were 153 cases of AFM in 2016 and 238 cases in 2018, but only 31 cases in 2020.
In light of everything the United States has experienced in recent times, these are some figures for which you can feel good.
However, there is no time for complacency, especially because the unplanned gap year of EV-D68 may have left a larger-than-usual gap in population-level viral immunity.
“Based on low number of [predicted] In the case of EV-D68 in 2019, we would expect an increase in the number of susceptible individuals, which increases the likelihood of a major outbreak, ”says the team.
“If social distancing prevents the outbreak from occurring, the susceptible set may increase further.”
The findings are reported in Scientific translational medicine.