The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Friday that there has been a deadly outbreak of the disease in the US.
The CDC is investigating more than 100 cases of unusual hepatitis in 24 states, plus Puerto Rico, according to a deputy director.
At least five of those cases have been deadly and at least one of them required a transplant.
Over the past seven months, the CDC has been investigating cases in children younger than 10 years old.
It is not clear what is causing these cases, as more than half of the children had an adenoviruses infection when they contracted their liver inflammation. On Friday, the UK Health Security Agency released a technical briefing, saying the leading hypotheses remain those that involve adenoviruses.
We continue to investigate the role of the virus that causes COVID-19, and to work to rule out any toxicological component.
Dr. Umesh Parashar, the CDC's chief of viral diseases, said on the call that it was still early days.
Environmental factors, medicines, or other non-adenoviruses could be playing a role in the case. Covid-19 vaccine is not the cause of these illnesses.
The majority of these kids are too young to be protected against COVID, with a median age of just two years old. In Alabama where the first nine confirmed cases were identified in the US, no child had a documented history of COVID-19 infections, and no one was sick with it during their hospitalization. The CDC said that most of the children who have been diagnosed with this form of dangerous but rare hepatitis have recovered.
The number of patients testing positive for adenoviruses in this outbreak seems high to me, but he also thinks it is not time to get super.
He said that he was not hearing anything to suggest that it would spread quickly.
Leonis explained that doctors aren't able to figure out a precise cause for many severe hepatitis cases in kids.
The child that I am looking at in the intensive care unit who we are considering for a liver transplant had two siblings who got a cold along with them, and the other two are fine, he said. Is it because of a different combination of genes? Is it because they were on a different medication that made them more sensitive? We don't know.
The CDC wants doctors, parents, and caregivers to watch out for it.
A child may be coming down with a disease.
Basic hygiene measures are recommended for prevention. The air and fecal-oral routes are where adenoviruses spread. It's important to wash your hands before you eat, change your diaper, or touch a snotty tissue. Also, masks help.
Leonis said that it was easy to forget. Maybe you think my hands are clean because I didn't clean baby number one. No, no, no.
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