Experts say it’s too soon for Americans to start worrying about hepatitis, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a warning Thursday about nine cases detected in young children in Alabama.
All cases of inflammatory liver disease occurred in children under the age of six, of which two resulted in liver transplants.
As part of this epidemic, sick children are also reported in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Israel, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain, with more than 100 cases worldwide.
Dr. Aaron Milstone, MD, a specialist in childhood diseases at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, urged parents to remain calm, saying the disease is “very, very rare.”
He told DailyMail.com: “It’s too early to worry at this point, but as we’ve learned with Covid, we will need to follow the pattern.”
Dr. Richard Malley, an infectious disease specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital, urged parents not to view the cluster as “the next epidemic.”
Since October, mysterious cases of hepatitis, believed to be caused by adenoviruses that normally cause colds, have been discovered in nine children in Alabama (stock image)
To date, more than 100 cases have been detected worldwide, including several European countries. UK has reported over 100 cases so far
Scientists in the United States suggest that adenoviruses, which normally play a role in mild colds, vomiting and diarrhea, may be at the root of the wave of sickness.
About 70% of patients in the United States tested positive, none of whom tested positive for hepatitis A, B, and C viruses.
Dr. Milstone told DailyMail.com that cases of adenovirus are common in children, but “rare” to cause hepatitis.
He said the CDC has issued an alert in case of cases to ask public health professionals to come forward and encourage them to pay attention to the disease.
“The CDC can issue an alert when it’s a rare disease to understand the extent of the problem and help identify the source or overall exposure,” he said.
“There can be one case in every state and no one would think to report an isolated case, but hypothetically 50 cases (one for each state) could be detected with this notification.”
“This is an excellent example of why we need a strong and integrated public health infrastructure to study these types of diseases.”
Parents can protect their children from adenoviruses in the same way they protect them from Covid, particularly by encouraging hand washing and encouraging them to cover their mouths when they cough, he said.
Malley told DailyMail.com that parents shouldn’t worry and said it’s important to “contextualize the warning”.
“Once again, in the age of Covid, they want people not to panic and think this is the next hepatitis pandemic,” he said.
“This is not it.”
“The warning is aimed at the public, especially public health workers, so they feel they should report it to the CDC if they see one, two or three cases.
“If you tell your department they can decide to review and test the samples.
“We do this in cases of food poisoning in a variety of settings, such as restaurants”.
He suggested that the mysterious hepatitis may only affect young children because they have less developed immune systems than adults.
“You and I may have had adenovirus 41 before,” he said, “so we’re relatively better protected compared to others.”
The CDC said in its warning yesterday that it “asked all doctors to monitor symptoms and report all suspected cases of unknown hepatitis.”
The outbreak was first warned of when five children with the condition were admitted to a children’s hospital in Alabama in October.
A review of medical records revealed four more cases of unexplained hepatitis among children under the age of 6 in the state.
No link was found between the cases, but scientists excluded Covid and hepatitis viruses as possible causes.
Experts who studied the clusters earlier this week said blockages may have played a role in weakening children’s immunity and putting them at greater risk.
In the journal Eurosurveillance, the team led by Public Health Scotland epidemiologist Dr Kimberly Marsh wrote that due to disability, more children may be “immunologically naive” to the virus.
They said: “The main hypotheses revolve around adenovirus: a new variant with a clear clinical syndrome or a variant that circulates regularly and has more serious consequences for young children who are immunologically naive.
“The second scenario could be the result of limited social mixing during the pandemic.”
Other scientists have argued that it may be a virus acquiring “unusual mutations.”
Hepatitis usually has no obvious symptoms, but may include dark urine, light gray stools, itchy skin, and yellowing of the eyes and skin.
Infected people may also have muscle and joint pain, high fever, feel sick, and feel unusually tired at all times.
When hepatitis is transmitted by a virus, it is usually caused by consuming food and drink contaminated with the feces of an infected person, or by blood-to-blood or sexual contact.
Source: Daily Mail
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