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MILAN / LONDON (Reuters) – Italian and British medical experts are investigating a possible link between the coronavirus pandemic and clusters of serious inflammatory diseases among newborns arriving at the hospital with high fever and inflamed arteries.
Scientists work in a laboratory to analyze samples of COVID-19 at the New York City Department of Health, during the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City, New York, United States , on April 23, 2020. Photograph taken on April 23, 2020. REUTERS / Brendan McDermid
Doctors in northern Italy, one of the most affected areas in the world during the pandemic, have reported an extraordinarily large number of children under the age of 9 with severe cases of what appears to be Kawasaki disease, most common in parts of Asia.
In Britain, doctors made similar observations, prompting Health Secretary Matt Hancock at a coronavirus press conference on Monday to say he was “very concerned” and that medical authorities were studying the matter closely.
In the United States, a major pediatric society says it hasn’t seen something similar yet.
Kawasaki disease, the cause of which is unknown, often affects children younger than 5 years of age and is associated with fever, rashes, inflammation of the glands, and, in severe cases, inflammation of the arteries of the heart. There is some evidence that individuals may inherit a predisposition to the disease, but the pattern is unclear.
England’s national medical director Stephen Powis told the British briefing that he had become aware of reports of seriously ill children with symptoms similar to those of Kawasaki in recent days, but stressed that it was too early to determine a link. with the coronavirus.
“I asked the national clinical director for children and youth to consider this urgently. … We are not sure at this time,” Powis said.
In Italy pediatricians are also alarmed.
A hospital in the northern city of Bergamo has seen more than 20 cases of severe vascular inflammation in the past month, six times more than you’d expect to see in a year, pediatric heart specialist Matteo Ciuffreda said.
Ciuffreda, from the Giovanni XXIII hospital, said that only some of the babies with vascular inflammation tested positive for the new coronavirus, but pediatric cardiologists in Madrid and Lisbon told him they had seen similar cases.
He has asked colleagues to document each case to determine if there is a correlation between Kawasaki disease and COVID-19. His goal is to publish the results of Italian research in a scientific journal.
‘MULTIORGAN INFLAMMATION’
Ciuffreda said his first case of apparent Kawasaki disease was a 9-year-old boy who came to the hospital on March 21, at the peak of the coronavirus outbreak, with a high fever and low blood oxygen levels. He tested negative for the coronavirus.
A scan showed that the boy had an enlarged coronary artery, a hallmark of severe cases of Kawasaki disease, he said.
“The boy worried me a lot, with violent inflammation of multiple organs that affects both the heart and the lungs,” Ciuffreda said. “I was afraid it would not survive, but surprisingly, over the course of a few days, it took a positive turn and improved.”
Kawasaki disease was anecdotally associated 16 years ago with another known coronavirus, although it was never proven. The investigation was carried out after another related coronavirus known as NL63 was discovered in a baby showing symptoms of Kawasaki disease in 2004.
Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading in Britain, said the NL63 virus uses the same receptor as the new coronavirus to infect humans, but also emphasized that it was too early to draw conclusions.
“We just have to wait and see if this becomes a common observation,” he said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has yet to see something similar in the United States, which has the highest number of coronavirus infections and deaths. “We do not know of any reports of this phenomenon in the United States,” said Dr. Yvonne. . Maldonado, who chairs the academy’s committee on infectious diseases, said in an email, referring to a possible link between COVID-19 and Kawasaki-like symptoms.
Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Colorado Children’s Hospital who sits on that AAP committee, said his hospital has seen several cases of Kawasaki this year, but none of the more than 30 children entered by COVID-19.
“Even if it is related, it is a very rare complication,” he said. “If it were more common, we would already have a very good idea about it in the United States.”
Reports by Emilio Parodi in Milan and Alisstair Smout in London; Additional reports by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Edition by Mark Bendeich, Alison Williams and Leslie Adler
