CHICAGO - A suburban Chicago girl and a girl from Indiana are being treated for a rare condition that afflicts the nervous system.
According to her parents, 2-year-old Julia Payne's symptoms at first resembled those of a common cold. She was later diagnosed with acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM, and has been undergoing treatment for a month at Chicago's Lurie Children's Hospital.
The father of an 8-year-old from Indiana says his daughter has some paralysis and a partially-collapsed lung.
Melaney Arnold of the Illinois Department of Public Health says health care providers in the state have reported nine cases of AFM. She says the findings of health care providers are preliminary and only the Centers for Disease Control can confirm the diagnosis.
Until then, doctors are treating the cases as if they are AFM.
Between August 2014 and August 2018, the CDC received information on 362 cases of AFM nationwide. The CDC says little is known about what causes the disease.
