What parents should know about the surge in severe enterovirus

A pediatrician has answers for parents about enterovirus D68 as a possible precursor to a neurologic condition that involves limb weakness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a health advisory about a rise in children hospitalized with a severe respiratory illness who also test positive for the rhinovirus or enterovirus EV-D68.

That particular enterovirus has been associated with acute flaccid myelitis (AFM)—a rare polio-like illness that affects the nerve cells in the gray matter of the spinal cord and could lead to permanent paralysis.

Here, Simon Li, an associate professor of pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, discusses what parents should know about children who test positive for different viruses that cause severe respiratory illnesses:

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