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Esco VacciXcell News

Acute Flaccid Myelitis: A Rare Disease for Children

By Esco Healthcare 7 November, 2018

 

Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM), is a rare disease affecting the nervous system and is caused by the Enterovirus 68. Since AFM affects the nerves, it can weaken not only the arms and the legs, but also respiratory muscles, which can lead to respiratory failure. Many symptoms of AFM develop after a viral infection such as poliovirus, West Nile virus, and adenovirus. Hence, some cases have a clear correlation why some infected people develop AFM.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) there were 62 cases in 22 states in America recently. AFM is not new, but the cases increase every other year since 2014. Most patients under the age of 15.

AFM can be diagnosed by examining the patient's nervous specially those body parts experiencing a decrease in reflexes or muscular weakness. Magnetic resonance imaging can be done to look at a patient's brain and spinal cord. AFM can be difficult to diagnose because it manifest many symptoms like other neurological diseases.

Moreover, there is no specific treatment for AFM, but a neurologist may recommend certain medications on a case-to-case basis. In addition, poliovirus and West Nile virus sometimes lead to AFM and in order to protect yourself from these viruses by staying up-to-date with polio vaccines and minimize exposure to mosquitoes.

Due to the increasing number of AFM cases, it is better to prevent everyone from AFM. Bioreactors are usually used in producing large amount of certain types of virus to make the vaccine. These viruses are commonly proliferated by using mammalian cell line as host cells.

Esco VacciXcell offers a wide range of bioreactors that can produce high yields specific virus for a certain type of vaccine. Commercially available, with the use of Tide Motion principle, the gentle vertical oscillation of culture medium and air provides cells an environment that is low shear stress to avoid cell damage or cell death.

 

  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.(November 6, 2018) Acute flaccid myelitis 2016; http://www.cdc.gov/acute-flaccid-myelitis/about-afm.html.
  2. Messacar K, Schreiner TL, Van Haren K, et al. Acute flaccid myelitis: A clinical review of US cases 2012-2015. Ann Neurol. September, 2016; 80(3):326-338. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5098271/

 

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About Acute Flaccid Myelitis

Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM), is a rare disease affecting the nervous system and is caused by the Enterovirus 68. Since AFM affects the nerves, it can weaken not only the arms and the legs, but also respiratory muscles, which can lead to respiratory failure.

Reference: https://www.cdc.gov/features/acute-flaccid-myelitis/index.html

About Tide Motion Bioreactors

Tide Motion pertains to the gentle oscillation of culture medium into and out of the matrix vessel that intermittently exposes the cells to aeration and nutrition. The upward oscillation exposes the cells to nutrition, while the downward oscillation exposes the cells to aeration. At the same time, this process washes away products and wastes. This oscillation produces no air bubbles and low shear stress. View a range of products at http://www.vaccixcell.com/tide-technology/

About Esco VacciXcell

Esco VacciXcell is the bioprocessing division of Esco Group of Companies that specializes in the marketing and manufacturing of bioprocessing equipment for cell culture.

Esco VacciXcell provides turnkey manufacturing solutions using its proprietary Tide Motion™ technology to help developing nations to be self-sufficient in the manufacturing, storing, distribution, and administration of vaccines and other biologics, thus providing a complete solution from Discovery to Delivery. For more information on VacciXcell, please visit www.vaccixcell.com.