It’s worth noting that the best available evidence points to a fairly common stomach bug that doesn’t cause liver problems in otherwise healthy children. that virus It was found in the blood of the afflicted children but it has not been detected in their diseased livers.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Laboratory tests have shown that some children had adenovirus type 41, which makes children more likely to develop severe stomach disease. However there have been previous reports of hepatitis in children with suppressed immune systems.” were infected with adenovirus, adenovirus is not a common cause of type 41 hepatitis in otherwise healthy children.”
“Infection with other common causes of viral hepatitis, such as hepatitis A, B, C, D and E virus, were considered, but evidence of these infections was not found in any patient.” CDC Update further noted.
Meanwhile, Eric Kramer, a virus researcher at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of Montpellier in France, said, “There are a lot of things that don’t make sense.”
What health officials are asking about the mysterious disease:
- Has there been some surge in a stomach worm – called adenovirus 41 – that is causing more cases of the problem than is already known?
- Are children more susceptible to pandemic-related lockdowns that protect them from the virus they commonly experience?
- Is it because of some mutated version of adenovirus? Or any other unrecognized germ, drug or toxin?
- Is it some sort of impaired immune system response determined by previous COVID-19 infection and subsequent invasion by another virus?
- The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and investigators around the world are trying to figure out what’s going on.
What the CDC knows so far:
As the diseases are considered rare, CDC officials last week said they are now looking for 180 possible cases across the US, most children were hospitalized, at least 15 needed liver transplants and Six died.
More than 20 other countries have reported hundreds more cases in total, although the highest numbers have been in the UK and US.
Specifically, symptoms of hepatitis — or inflammation of the liver — include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, light-colored stools, joint pain, and jaundice.
The extent of the problem began to become clear only last month, although disease detectives say they have been working on the mystery for months. Experts say that narrowing down to a cause is extremely difficult.
The traditional causes of liver inflammation in otherwise healthy children — viruses known as hepatitis A, B, C, D and E — did not show up in trials. Furthermore, the children came from different places and there seemed to be no common exposure.
What showed up was adenovirus 41. More than half of US cases have tested positive for adenoviruses, of which there are dozens of varieties. In a small number of samples tested to see what type of adenovirus was present, adenovirus 41 was detected each time.
The fact that adenovirus continues to appear strengthens the case for it to play a role, but it’s not clear how, said Dr. Jay Butler told the Associated Press.
Many adenoviruses are associated with symptoms of the common cold, such as fever, sore throat and pink eye. Some variants — including adenovirus 41 — can trigger other problems, including inflammation in the stomach and intestines. Adenovirus has previously been linked to hepatitis in children, but mostly in children with weakened immune systems.
Dr. Umesh Parashar, head of the CDC group focusing on viral gut diseases, said recent genetic analysis has provided no evidence that a new mutant version of the virus is to blame.
Adenovirus infections are not tracked systematically in the US, so it is unclear whether there has been some recent jump in virus activity. In fact, adenoviruses are so common that researchers aren’t sure what to do with their presence in these cases.
“If we start testing everyone for adenovirus, they’ll find so many kids” who have it, said Dr. Haley Bhatt, who treated two children from Minnesota with liver problems.
Had a baby who came in about five months ago with liver failure. The doctor could not understand why. Unfortunately, “there’s no reason to be something that happens,” Bhatt said. Roughly one-third of acute liver failure cases are unexplained, experts estimate. AP report good.
Bhatt said he noticed that the second child had become ill last month. By that time, health officials were drawing attention to the cases, and he and other doctors went back in October to review unexplained illnesses.
In fact, several cases were added in the past few weeks that were not recent diseases, but were earlier ones that were reevaluated. About 10% of US cases occurred in May, Butler said. Since the fall, the rate looks relatively flat, he said.
It’s possible that doctors are just discovering a phenomenon that has been going on for years, some scientists said.
Could Covid-19 be the culprit?
The CDC recently estimated that, as of February, 75% of American children were infected with the coronavirus. Health officials say only 10% to 15% of children with mysterious hepatitis had COVID-19 when they checked into the hospital, according to nasal swab tests.
But investigators are wondering about past coronavirus infections. It’s possible that coronavirus particles lurking in the stomach are playing a role, said Petter Brodin, a pediatrician at Imperial College London.
Earlier this month in the medical journal Lancet, Brodin and another scientist suggested that a combination of long-lived coronavirus and adenovirus infection could trigger an immune system response that damages the liver.
“I think it’s an unfortunate combination of circumstances that could explain this,” Brodin said. AP, Butler said researchers have seen complex reactions like this before, and investigators are discussing ways to better test the hypothesis.
(with inputs from agencies)