The Japanese health ministry on Tuesday said that it has found one probable case of the mysterious severe acute hepatitis affecting children in the United States and Europe. Over the past few weeks, an unknown, severe strain of hepatitis was identified in nearly 170 children across 11 countries. One child also died due to this mysterious syndrome.
According to news agency Bloomberg, this is likely the first case in Asia. The child also has not undergone a liver transplant. The Japanese child also tested negative for the adenovirus which was detected in more than 40% of the global cases.
More than a dozen children have undergone liver transplant as a result of this mysterious outbreak. The cases were first detected in Scotland. Last week the United Kingdom health authorities confirmed that a total of 114 cases were detected. They are also investigating whether there’s a potential link between the Covid-19 pandemic and the hepatitis outbreak.
Nineteen of the 169 recorded cases contracted both Covid and adenovirus while 20 children contracted Covid.
The Scottish authorities pointed out that it was unusual and none of the children were detected with any of the five known hepatitis viruses, A, B, C, D and E.
Cases were also detected in Spain (13), Israel (12) and the US (9). Cases were also reported from Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, France, Romania and Belgium.
The children were previously healthy and their symptoms developed suddenly. The children suffered from jaundice, diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal pain.
Meera Chand, director of clinical and emerging infections at the UK Health Security Agency, told news agency AFP that a combination of a normal adenovirus along with another factor could be making the disease more severe in children.
She also said that children who grew up when lockdowns were imposed did not build up immunity to these adenoviruses. However, doctors and researchers have not made any conclusions and continue to study the developments.
With a case detected in Japan, now more than 10 countries have reported children falling sick with this mysterious liver disease. It has affected children aged between 1 month to 16 years but most of the children with this disease are below 10 years of age.
(with inputs from Bloomberg and AFP)
Read all the Latest News here
Comments
0 comment