Acute flaccid myelitis associated with enterovirus D68 in a non-epidemic setting

• Main Authors: Kazuki Hatayama, Shinichiro Goto, Masato Yashiro, Harushi Mori, Tsuguto Fujimoto, Nozomu Hanaoka, Keiko Tanaka-Taya, Tomoka Zuzan, Masaru Inoue
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2019-01-01
• Series: IDCases
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214250919300551

Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) is a recently defined clinical disease accompanied by the national outbreak of enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) in the United States during the late summer/fall of 2014; 258 cases of EV-D68 and 59 cases of AFM were reported in Japan during the late summer/fall of 2015. Subsequently, there have been no epidemics of AFM or EV-D68. However, we encountered a patient who had AFM associated with EV-D68 in 2017. This is the first case of AFM caused by EV-D68 after the 2015 epidemic, and the only reported case in 2017. This report indicates that AFM caused by EV-D68 can arise even in non-epidemic situations. If a patient presents with paralysis, AFM caused by EV-D68 should be included in the differential diagnosis, regardless of the absence of an epidemic of EV-D68 infection. Keywords: Acute flaccid myelitis, Enterovirus D68