Enterovirus 71: Emerging Central Nervous System Pathogen?!

Enterovirus 71 (EV71) is a common cause of both hand-foot-and-mouth syndrome and aseptic meningitis, particularly in Asia. EV71 may also invade the ventral brain stem, cerebellum, and spinal cord producing a spectrum of disorders, including aseptic meningitis, encephalitis, encephalomyelitis, or a polio-like syndrome with acute flaccid paralysis and can also cause cardiopulmonary failure. Investigators from the National Taiwan University Hospital and the Chang Gung Children’s Hospital, Taiwan, followed 142 children up to six years after an EV71 infection with central nervous system (CNS) involvement to assess the long-term neurodevelopmental consequences of EV71 CNS infection in children hospitalized between 1998 and 2003. Isolation of the virus, a positive EV71 IGM, or a four-fold increase in EV71-neutralizing acute body titers were used to confirm EV71 infection. A total of 621 patients had EV71 infection, and of these 232 (37.4%) had CNS involvement. The median age at disease onset was 1.8 years (range 0.1 to 13.5), the median …