Tag Archives: Kawasaki disease

Mother who lost only son to rare COVID complication warns parents to look for early signs

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – By the time doctors realized that Lorena Navarrete’s son had a rare complication of COVID-19 that afflicts some children, it was too late to save her 16-year-old Emilio.

Lorena, a single mother who lives in the southern Chilean city of Puerto Montt, told the TVN network that her music-loving and sociable son died about a week after he first complained of feeling tired and of a pain in his legs in late January.

Within days he had developed livid blotches on his skin, a high fever, vomiting and dark urine.

Doctors at the city’s hospital, overrun with severe COVID cases, repeatedly tested him for COVID but with the results coming back negative were at a loss as to what was wrong with him.

By the time his illness was identified as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, it was too late. Lorena could not be at her son’s bedside because of strict health protocols, but a social worker called to pass on the message that her son loved her very much. She asked the social worker to tell her son she would see him soon, and that his pets were well.

“A doctor said that if I had faith, I should pray because my son was very ill,” said Navarrete, who works as a nurse technician. “They had a diagnosis and it was PIMS.”

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), as PIMS is more commonly known, is a rare, life-threatening syndrome linked to COVID-19.

It usually appears between two and six weeks after infection, even in asymptomatic cases of COVID-19.

It shares symptoms with toxic shock and Kawasaki disease, including fever, rashes, swollen glands, conjunctivitis and, in severe cases, heart inflammation, and can cause multiple organ failure. It is not always fatal if caught and treated early.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in January that it was investigating whether COVID variants were increasing the number or severity of cases following anecdotal reports from some states.

Dr. Loreto Twele, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Puerto Montt hospital, said catching it was like piecing together a jigsaw.

“There is no single exam. You have to put the pieces together to be able to make an early diagnosis and start treatment,” she said.

Chilean public health chief Paula Daza said in a media briefing on Monday that of the 69,563 confirmed cases of COVID in children so far in Chile, 157 cases of MIS-C have been reported.

“The rate of cases of children with these conditions is quite low, however, health professionals have to be alert,” she said.

For Emilio’s mother Lorena, the pain of losing her only son is partly helped by knowing she can raise awareness.

“I do not want Emilio’s death to be in vain and for this to be known so that the same thing does not happen to other parents,” she said.

(Writing by Aislinn Laing and Fabian Cambero; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Europe sees two deaths, multiple cases of COVID-linked syndrome in children

(Reuters) – A new life-threatening inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19 has affected 230 children in Europe and killed two so far this year, a regional health body said on Friday, as medics worldwide were told to be on alert.

The Swedish-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said in a risk report that two children had succumbed to the condition: one in Britain and one in France.

The new coronavirus has so far taken its greatest toll on the elderly and those with chronic health conditions, but reports about the syndrome in children have raised fears it could pose a greater risk to the young than first through.

At a briefing in Geneva, the World Health Organisation (WHO) urged clinicians to be alert to the rare syndrome but cautioned that links to COVID-19 were still unclear.

The condition, known as paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS), shares symptoms with toxic shock and Kawasaki disease including fever, rashes, swollen glands and, in severe cases, heart inflammation.

“I call on all clinicians worldwide to work with your national authorities and WHO to be alert and better understand this syndrome in children,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

On Friday, the WHO issued a preliminary definition of the syndrome, which it said had become more frequent during the current pandemic but has also appeared in children who did not test positive for COVID-19.

The condition affected children and adolescents showing fever for more than three days, with elevated markers of inflammation.

The children also showed at least two of the following symptoms: rash or signs of inflammation around the mouth, hands or feet; shock or low blood pressure; heart problems; evidence of bleeding disorder; and acute gastrointestinal problems.

The case definition pertained to children who had contracted COVID-19 or had had likely contact with COVID-19 patients, and had no other obvious microbial cause of inflammation, it said.

“We know so far very little about this inflammatory syndrome,” said WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove.

In France, doctors said a nine-year old boy died a week ago in the southern town of Marseille after developing a syndrome akin to Kawasaki disease and being in contact with the coronavirus though not suffering its symptoms.

He was hospitalized on May 2 after scarlet fever had been diagnosed. Back home, he suffered from a severe heart ailment and was rushed back to Marseille’s Timone hospital’s intensive care unit, where he died.

French researchers on Thursday reported Kawasaki disease-like symptoms in 17 children admitted to a Paris hospital between April 27 and May 7, while in an average two-week period they would have expected to see only one such case.

The European Union (EU) health body ECDC added it had agreed to include the syndrome as a possible complication of COVID-19 to be reported for Europe-wide surveillance.

Research efforts should aim at determining what role the coronavirus, if any, plays in causing PIMS, it said.

The risk of PIMS in children was currently considered low, as was the risk of them contracting COVID-19, the agency said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday issued guidance to doctors on how to recognize and report cases of the syndrome, following the reports of cases in Europe and more than 100 in the state of New York.

At its briefing, the WHO urged governments and companies to work together to develop a vaccine and treatments against COVID-19, and make distribution equitable.

“Traditional market models will not deliver at the scale needed to cover the entire globe,” Tedros said.

Costa Rica’s President Carlos Alvarado called at the briefing for creating a pool of patents and licenses on a voluntary basis to enable fair access.

France said on Thursday the world’s nations would have equal access to any vaccine developed by pharmaceuticals giant Sanofi, a day after the company’s chief executive suggested Americans would likely be the first in line.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt, Michael Shields and Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi in Zurich, Francesco Guarascio in Brussels, Marc Leras and Benoit Van Overstraeten in Paris; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Edmund Blair)

U.S. to tell doctors to report cases of COVID-19 inflammatory syndrome in kids

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. health officials said on Wednesday they will issue an alert telling doctors to report cases of a rare life-threatening inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19 in children to their state and local health departments.

The alert from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be released on Wednesday or Thursday, an agency spokesman said in an emailed statement.

U.S. scientists have been working to understand the inflammatory syndrome associated with exposure to the new coronavirus, which has stricken children in Italy, Spain, Britain, and the United States.

In New York, more than 100 children are reported to have developed the syndrome, which may occur days to weeks after a COVID-19 illness. At least three children have died, the state reported on Saturday. All three tested positive for the new coronavirus or had antibodies to it, suggesting the syndrome is linked to COVID-19.

The syndrome shares symptoms with toxic shock and Kawasaki disease, with symptoms such as fever, skin rashes, swelling of the glands and, in severe cases, inflammation of arteries of the heart.

Scientists are still trying to determine whether the syndrome is linked with the new coronavirus because not all children with it have tested positive for the virus.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Ediiting by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot)

Rare syndrome tied to COVID-19 kills three children in New York, Cuomo says

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Three children in New York have died from a rare inflammatory syndrome believed to be linked to the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday, a development that may augur a pandemic risk for the very young.

Both Cuomo and his counterpart in the neighboring state of New Jersey also spoke on Saturday about the pandemic’s growing toll on mental health, another factor on the minds of governors as they weigh the impact of mounting job losses against health risks in moving to loosen restrictions on daily life.

Nearly all of the 50 U.S. states will have taken steps to relax lockdown measures by this weekend, including states like Arizona and Mississippi, which are reporting increasing infections of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, highlighting the risk of a new wave of outbreaks.

Cuomo told a daily briefing that he was increasingly worried about a syndrome that shares symptoms with toxic shock and Kawasaki disease, which he said included inflammation of the blood vessels and potentially fatal damage to the heart.

He said three children – including a five-year old disclosed on Friday – have died from such symptoms while also testing positive for COVID-19 or related antibodies, suggesting a link that was still not fully understood.

Cuomo, who has emerged as a leading national voice on states’ response to the coronavirus crisis, said state health officials were reviewing 73 similar cases, which have rattled a prior assumption that children were largely not susceptible to the novel coronavirus.

“We are not so sure that is the fact anymore. Toddler, elementary school children are presenting symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease or toxic shock-like syndrome,” Cuomo said. “It’s very possible that this has been going on for several weeks and it hasn’t been diagnosed as related to COVID.”

Cuomo said state health officials had partnered with the New York Genome Center and the Rockefeller University to look at whether there is a genetic basis for the syndrome and have been asked by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop national criteria for identifying and treating cases.

The syndrome shares symptoms with toxic shock and Kawasaki disease, which is associated with fever, skin rashes, swelling of the glands, and in severe cases, inflammation of arteries of the heart. Scientists are still trying to determine whether the syndrome is linked with the new coronavirus because not all children with it have tested positive for the virus.

At a separate briefing, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said the death of a four-year old disclosed on Friday was not related to the syndrome. “This is a very specific situation with this blessed little kid and we are going to leave it at that.”

‘TOXIC MIX’

New York and New Jersey are at the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, accounting for nearly half of the 77,737 American deaths from COVID-19, according to a Reuters tally, and the two states have among the strictest lockdown rules still in place.

They are also at the center of a devastating economic toll underscored in government data released on Friday showing the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 14.7% last month, up from 3.5% in February and shattering the post-World War Two record of 10.8% set in November 1982.

Cuomo said his state has seen increasing reports of mental health issues, substance abuse and domestic violence, all tied to the economic stress and isolation of the lockdowns.

On Friday a study released by the Well Being Trust and the American Academy of Family Physicians estimated an additional 75,000 people could lose their lives to suicide, drugs and other contributors to “deaths of despair” stemming from the crisis.

Murphy echoed those concerns.

“The cure for the health crisis is keeping people isolated,” Murphy told his briefing. “You add to that job loss, small businesses that have been crushed. It’s a toxic mix.”

Cuomo said 226 New Yorkers died from COVID-19 on Friday, up from 216 a day earlier, but less than half the levels recorded two weeks ago. He said hospitalizations and intubations continued their downward trend, further evidence the state has gained a measure of control over the virus.

Murphy said an additional 166 residents of his state had died over the past 24 hours from COVID-19, bringing its total fatalities to 9,116, while total cases rose by 1,759 to 137,085.

On a positive note, Murphy said the number of people hospitalized for the disease continued to fall, with the 422 patients discharged over the past 24 hours outpacing the 364 newly admitted for treatment.

Yet Murphy warned against complacency and said his constituents should continue to practice social distancing.

“We are not out of the woods, folks. Let’s not forget that,” he said.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Dan Grebler)