Tuesday, September 23, 2014

UPDATE: Enterovirus (EV-D68)

States with Lab-confirmed Enterovirus D68
From mid-August to September 22, 2014, a total of 175 people from 27 states were confirmed to have respiratory illness caused by EV-D68. The 27 states are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia. The cases of EV-D68 infection were confirmed by the CDC or state public health laboratories that notified CDC.


In the upcoming weeks, more states will have confirmed cases of EV-D68 infection.
·       The primary reason for increases in cases is that several states are investigating clusters of people with severe respiratory illness, and specimens are still being tested for EV-D68. It can take a while to test specimens and obtain lab results. That’s because the testing is complex and slower, and can only be done by CDC and a small number of state public health laboratories. As the backlog of specimens is processed, the number of states and confirmed cases will likely increase. These increases will not necessarily reflect changes in real time, or mean that the situation is getting worse.
·       Some of the increase will be from new EV-D68 infections since people are more likely to get infected with enteroviruses in the summer and fall. We are currently in the middle of the enterovirus season.

As investigations progress, we will have a better understanding of the trends for EV-D68 infections.

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