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West Nile Virus Causes Paralysis in Some CHICAGO (Reuters) - Polio-like paralysis and neurological symptoms such as memory loss and chronic headaches afflict some patients infected with the West Nile virus, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday. The mosquito-borne virus has reappeared this year in 32 U.S. states after infecting more than 4,000 people in 20 states last year, killing 284 people. An estimated 200,000 people have been exposed to the virus, which in most healthy people produces a low-grade fever but can create serious health problems in roughly 1 percent of those infected. A study conducted in hard-hit St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, concluded that a small portion of patients developed acute, longer-lasting symptoms that included meningitis, encephalitis, and poliomyelitis-like paralysis. Some developed movement disorders that resembled the tremors of Parkinson's disease, and others suffered chronic muscle contractions. After eight months, many of the symptoms had cleared up but some patients complained of chronic fatigue, headaches and muscle aches, wrote study author James Sejvar of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. One patient died before the follow-up examination and the few who developed paralysis failed to recover limb strength. Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Sejvar said the movement disorders were likely under-recognized in West Nile patients, though the prognosis for recovery was good.
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