European doctors warn rare kids’ syndrome may have virus tie

Doctors in Britain, Italy, and Spain have been warned to look out for a rare inflammatory condition in children that is possibly linked to new coronavirus.

Earlier this week, Britain’s Paediatric Intensive Care Society issued an alert to doctors ting that in past three weeks, re has been an increase in number of children with “a multi-system inflammatory state requiring intensive care” across country. group said re was “growing concern” that eir a COVID-19 related syndrome was emerging in children or that a different, unidentified disease might be responsible.

“We alrey kw that a very small number of children can become severely ill with COVID-19 but this is very rare,” said Russell Viner, president of Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. “New diseases may present in ways that surprise us and clinicians need to be me aware of any emerging evidence of particular symptoms.”

cases were also reported to have features of toxic shock syndrome or Kawasaki disease, a rare blood vessel disorder. Only some of children tested positive for COVID-19, so scientists are unsure if se rare symptoms are caused by new coronavirus or by something else. Health officials estimate re have been about 10-20 such cases in Britain and NHS England said it is urgently investigating reports.

Spain’s Association of Pediatrics recently me a similar warning, telling doctors that in recent weeks, re h been a number of school- children suffering from “an unusual picture of abdominal pain, accompanied by gastrointestinal symptoms” that could le within hours to shock, low blood pressure and heart problems.

“It is a priority to recognize se (symptoms) to urgently refer se patients to a hospital,” pediatric association said.

In Italy, Dr. Angelo Ravelli of Gaslini Hospital and a member of Italian Paediatricians Society, sent a te to 10,000 colleagues with related concerns. He and his team reported an unusual increase in number of patients with Kawasaki disease, ting some children h COVID-19 or h contacts with confirmed virus cases.

Kawasaki symptoms include a high temperature that lasts for 5 days or more, a rash and swollen glands in neck, according to Britain’s National Health Service.

Dr. James Gill, an horary clinical lecturer at Warwick Medical School, said while reports were concerning, re was still solid evidence that rare syndrome was caused by COVID-19.

“Regardless of source, multi-system inflammatory diseases are exceptionally serious for children and alrey stretched intensive care teams, so keeping an extra eye out for new symptoms arising in patients we see is always a good thing,” he said.

Some possible cases have also been reported in France and Belgium.

To date, children have been among least affected group by coronavirus. Data from more than 75,000 cases in China showed y comprised 2.4% of all cases and mostly suffered only mild symptoms.

World Health Organization said it was attempting to gar more information on any new, coronavirus-related syndrome in children from its global network of doctors but h t received any official reports about it.

(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)