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rare children's disease linked to covid-19
experts are investigating a possible link between covid-19 in kids and kawasaki disease.
apr 29 2020
2 minute read
kids with covid-19 are also developing a rare disease. stock/getty
doctors in europe and australia are warning the public that a new rare autoimmune condition in children may be linked to coronavirus. on sunday, the paediatric intensive care society (pics) u.k. alerted doctors about a small rise in the number of cases of critically ill children having “overlapping features of toxic shock syndrome and atypical kawasaki disease with blood parameters” with some of the children testing positive for covid-19 according to cnn. pics added that abdominal pain, gastrointestinal symptoms and cardiac inflammation had also been symptoms.
“we already know that a very small number of children can become severely ill with covid-19, but this is very rare,” russell viner, president of the royal college of paediatrics and child health told usa today . “new diseases may present in ways that surprise us and clinicians need to be made aware of any emerging evidence of particular symptoms.”
kawasaki disease is a rare childhood illness which causes the walls of the blood vessels to become inflamed. while it mainly affects children under the age of five, children of any age can be affected. symptoms can include a high temperature that lasts for five days or more, a rash and swollen glands in the neck.
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it’s a condition that can also lead to serious heart complications , including the inflammation of blood vessels, heart valve problems, and even aneurysms, according to the mayo clinic. while it’s not fully understood what causes the disease, some experts theorize that it’s linked to environmental factors, viruses or genetically linked . it is believed that it’s not contagious from person to person.
doctors are still investigating the link between kawasaki disease and covid-19, however they say that children’s risk of catching the virus is still low. when it comes to kawasaki disease, experts say that children usually make a full recovery if they receive prompt treatment.
professor david burgner, a paediatric and infectious diseases doctor with the murdoch children’s research institute in melbourne, told the guardian that children with kawasaki disease are given intravenous immunoglobulin from donated blood to reduce their chance of developing heart issues from one-in-four to one-in-20. he added that children who do experience heart issues usually have it resolved once they’re older.
“we rarely have deaths from it, thankfully,” burgner said.
when it comes to covid-19 affecting children, there are still a relatively small number of cases.
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professor rosalind smyth, director and professor of child health, ucl great ormond st institute of child health, told cnn that current evidence suggests most children with covid-19 have milder symptoms, with approximately half having a fever, 40 per cent having a cough and less than ten per cent having gastrointestinal symptoms.
“however, our understanding of this condition in children is limited. covid-19 does present in adults as an inflammatory disease affecting a number of organs,” said smyth. “we should investigate fully these children, with sars-cov-2, who present with a multi-system inflammatory disease, to assess whether this is a presentation of covid-19.”
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