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(Reuters) – A 5-year-old boy died in New York of a rare inflammatory syndrome believed to be related to the new coronavirus, highlighting a potential new risk for children in the pandemic, the governor said on Friday. Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo said in a daily briefing that the boy died in New York City on Thursday and that health officials were looking at other deaths involving children in similar circumstances to see if there is a link to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
“There has been at least one fatality due to this and there may be others that are now under investigation,” Cuomo said. “This is every parent’s nightmare, correct, that their child may be affected by this virus.”
Cases of rare and life-threatening inflammatory diseases in children associated with exposure to COVID-19 were first reported in Britain, Italy, and Spain, but doctors in the United States are beginning to report groups of children with the disorder, they can attack multiple organs. , impair heart function and weaken the heart arteries.
Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital Colorado who sits on the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious diseases, said he believes the New York case is the first reported death from this syndrome in the U.S.
The syndrome shares symptoms with toxic shock and Kawasaki disease, which is associated with fever, rashes, inflammation of the glands, and, in severe cases, inflammation of the arteries of the heart. Scientists are still trying to determine if the syndrome is related to the new coronavirus because not all children with it have tested positive for the virus.
Cuomo said health officials were reviewing 73 cases with children showing such symptoms across the state.
“Although rare, we are looking at some cases where children affected with the COVID virus can get sick with symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease or toxic shock syndrome that literally causes inflammation in their blood vessels,” said the governor.
This emerging syndrome, which can occur days or weeks after a COVID-19 disease, reflects the surprising ways in which this completely new coronavirus infects and sickens its human hosts.
“This would be really painful news and it would open up a whole different chapter,” Cuomo said. “I cannot say how many people I spoke to who were reassured by the fact that the children were not becoming infected.”
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut, Maria Caspani in New York, and Julie Steenhuysen and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; edition by Franklin Paul and Jonathan Oatis)
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