[ad_1]
A five-year-old boy has become the first child in New York to “appear to die” from a rare inflammatory disease believed to be related to the new coronavirus.
Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters at a press conference on Friday that the boy died in New York City on Thursday night.
Officials at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital, where the boy, who had tested positive for the virus, was being treated, confirmed the death but did not disclose any other information.
Cuomo said health authorities are investigating 73 similar cases reported in New York, where children have exhibited symptoms of Kawasaki disease or toxic shock syndrome.
The increasing number of cases challenges previous beliefs that children are less susceptible to complications from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
A five-year-old boy from New York died Thursday at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital of what appears to be a rare inflammatory condition related to the coronavirus (file image)
Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference on Friday (pictured) that parents can be ‘comforted’ by believing that their children will not be affected.
“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,” Cuomo said.
‘So this is every parent’s nightmare, right? May your child be affected by this virus?
Efforts are underway to collect information on the disorder, called “Pediatric Multi-Systemic Inflammatory Syndrome Potentially Associated With COVID-19”.
On Wednesday, the New York State Department of Health issued an alert, asking hospitals to immediately report any cases to the department.
Cases of rare and life-threatening inflammatory diseases in children associated with exposure to COVID-19 were first reported in Britain, Italy, and Spain.
However, doctors across the United States, such as California, New York, and New Jersey, are beginning to report groups of children with the disorder, who can attack multiple organs, damage heart function, and weaken the heart arteries.
According to the New York Department of Health, most children with the syndrome of COVID-19 or COVID-19 antibodies.
Cuomo said the news was evidence that parents can no longer ‘console’ themselves knowing that their children are safe from the virus.
“This would be really painful news and it would open up a whole different chapter because I can’t say how many people I spoke to were reassured that the children were not getting infected,” Cuomo said.
“We thought that children could be transmission vehicles, but we did not think that children could suffer from it.”
In another case, doctors in Westchester County, upstate New York City, reported on Friday the death of a boy who had contracted the virus.
According to Dr. Michael Gewitz of the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Valhalla, where the child was being treated, he or she suffered neurological complications from the syndrome. Authorities wait to see if underlying conditions played a role in the boy’s death.
Health authorities are investigating 73 similar cases reported in New York. The disorder can be fatal, attacking multiple organs, impairing heart function and weakening the arteries. Photo: Jayden Hardowar, 8, from New York (left), and Juliet Daly, 12, from Louisiana (right), both were admitted to hospital after experiencing the syndrome.
Hospitals in New York are now reporting any cases to the state health department, and the CDC is compiling a patient registry. Pictured: A medical worker transports a patient to Mount Sinai in New York, April 1
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.
Scientists are still trying to determine if the syndrome is related to the new coronavirus, since not all children have tested positive for the virus.
The syndrome shares symptoms with toxic shock and Kawasaki disease, which is associated with fever, rashes, inflammation of the glands, and, in the most severe cases, inflammation of the arteries of the heart.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it is working with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists and other groups to collect data to better understand and characterize the syndrome, according to an emailed statement.
The goal is to develop a case definition that allows CDC to track cases and advise physicians on how to care for these patients.
Not all children who have developed the condition have tested positive for the new coronavirus, but doctors have enough to believe that the conditions are related.
For most children, COVID-19 is mild, and children are much less likely to be hospitalized with the disease than adults, according to the CDC.
“Children seem to laugh at COVID-19 most of the time,” said Dr. Jane Newburger, a pediatric cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital at Harvard.
“But rarely, a child will develop this hyperinflammatory state.”
Newburger said there appears to be a spectrum of illness, and that some children are “very ill, even in shock.” Most have fever and impaired function in one or more organs.
Some children get sick very quickly and need to be in a pediatric intensive care unit, while others can be cared for in a regular hospital ward, he said.
