Are We Worrying About the Wrong Virus?

The headlines are full of news about Ebola, and there’s a very valid reason for that. The illness presents in a gruesome, bloody fashion best suited for a horror movie. But while America’s attention is on a disease in which there is only ONE confirmed case in the country, there have been 538 cases of Enterovirus D68, 5 deaths, and 10 cases of paralysis.

The enterovirus is an illness that is passed on like the flu or the common cold, and there are millions of cases per year, according to CDC estimates. However, there are hundreds of strains and this one - EV-D68 – is incredibly virulent.

Last week in New Jersey, a little boy died suddenly, with no previous signs of being ill. He just went to bed and never got up. A week later, an autopsy confirmed that he had died from Enterovirus D-68. This went all but unnoticed by the media as the nation focused on the single case of Ebola in Dallas.

Eli — a sweet, active, blonde-haired preschooler — had gone to sleep feeling fine, perhaps dreaming of playing with his sisters or having a fun day at school.

He didn’t make it through the night.

While the young boy died sometime between the night of Wednesday, September 24, and the following morning, it wasn’t until Friday night that authorities figured out why: enterovirus D68, a particularly pernicious strain of an otherwise common virus that has been particularly widespread this year.

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