Science- The US may have recorded its first child death in the
hepatitis outbreak across Europe and the states. - Wisconsin said 4 hepatitis cases are being investigated — 1 required a liver transplant, 1 was fatal.
The mysterious
Wisconsin health officials reported Wednesday four cases of adenovirus-linked pediatric hepatitis, a type of liver inflammation that can be life-threatening. One of those cases required a liver transplant, and one was fatal, the officials reported. It would be the first known death of a child in the US from the infection that is causing international concern.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an alert to healthcare providers nationwide after at least nine suspicious cases of hepatitis were diagnosed in Alabama. Two more were later reported in North Carolina.
The World Health Organization says the same strange illness has also been spreading in Europe, with over 150 children infected, and at least one dead. The highest numbers of cases reported so far have been in the UK and in Spain.
Dr. Philippa Easterbrook, a senior scientist in the global hepatitis programme at the WHO, said during a Q&A on Thursday that such a rash of "severe hepatitis is unusual" in kids, and what's really setting off disease experts' alarm bells is the fact that "the majority of these children were previously healthy."
"None of the usual causes were explaining these cases," she said.
This rare type of hepatitis is something of a medical mystery
The children with this unusual type of pediatric hepatitis have ranged in age from one month to 16 years old, and roughly 10% have had cases severe enough to require liver transplants, the WHO said.
It's still a bit of a mystery what is causing this illness because the children infected have by and large tested negative for hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E, the usual culprits. The CDC suspects that these new illnesses may be linked to infection with a respiratory virus, called adenovirus 41. But independent immunologists are also wondering whether the fact that so many kids have recently had COVID-19 infections could be having some sort of effect on their immune systems too.
Epidemiologist Deepti Gurdasani from Queen Mary University in London said on Twitter that the coronavirus is "known to interact with other viruses," and may alter our immune response to other pathogens.
COVID-19 infections have been on a steep uptick in children across the US over the past few months, due in large part to the hyper-transmissible Omicron variant, and the fact that children under 5 years old are still ineligible for vaccination. From December 2021 to February 2022 the percentage of kids testing positive for infection-induced antibodies increased from around 44% to more than 75% nationwide, the CDC reported earlier this week.
A spokesperson from the CDC told Insider on Thursday afternoon that the agency "does not have additional cases beyond the Alabama state cases confirmed, but we hope to share more information soon."
Virologist Muge Cevik from the University of St Andrews said that for now, experts "need to keep an open mind" about what might be prompting these bizarre cases, suggesting on Twitter that there could be a non-infectious explanation for the outbreak, "such as food poisoning, drug, or metal exposure."