Kawasaki
-
The more I read about this virus the more I thought it's not as simple as a pulmonary infection. In fact, it looks more like something that attacks the vasculature, and the pulmonary effects are the result of that.
Now, this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/nyregion/children-Kawasaki-syndrome-coronavirus.html
Fifteen children, many of whom had the coronavirus, have recently been hospitalized in New York City with a mysterious syndrome that doctors do not yet fully understand but that has also been reported in several European countries, health officials announced on Monday night.
Many of the children, ages 2 to 15, have shown symptoms associated with toxic shock or Kawasaki disease, a rare illness in children that involves inflammation of the blood vessels, including coronary arteries, the city’s health department said.
None of the New York City patients with the syndrome have died, according to a bulletin from the health department, which describes the illness as a “multisystem inflammatory syndrome potentially associated with Covid-19.”
Reached late Monday night, the state health commissioner, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, said state officials were also investigating the unexplained syndrome.
The syndrome has received growing attention in recent weeks as cases began appearing in European countries hit hard by the coronavirus.
“There are some recent rare descriptions of children in some European countries that have had this inflammatory syndrome, which is similar to the Kawasaki syndrome, but it seems to be very rare,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, a World Health Organization scientist, said at a news briefing last week.I've never seen Kawasaki syndrome.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
When frightening reports began to emerge in the spring of British and U.S. children falling severely ill with an inflammatory syndrome linked to COVID-19, Montreal’s Sainte-Justine Hospital was the first to report a cluster of similar cases in Canada.
At the time, pediatricians couldn’t say for certain that the novel coronavirus was to blame. The new illness, multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), was thought to follow a COVID-19 infection, and blood tests for antibodies that would indicate a past coronavirus case were not yet available in Canada.
Now results are in for the children treated at Sainte-Justine: Of 21 suspected cases, only four had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. One child tested positive for an active infection.
“It’s very, very interesting for us, because we continue to think that this is related to SARS-CoV-2,” said Elie Haddad, the head of pediatric immunology at Sainte-Justine. “When they told us that only four patients were positive in serology, we were surprised.”
The Sainte-Justine patients are only a small sample, but the results suggest MIS-C is perhaps rarer in Canada than it first appeared.
In making sure no patients were missed, pediatricians in Canada may have included cases with similar symptoms but no connection to the coronavirus. In British Columbia, none of the six patients investigated for possible MIS-C since the beginning of the pandemic tested positive for antibodies, according to the province’s Ministry of Health.
“This is a very, very rare condition,” said Charlotte Moore Hepburn, director of medical affairs for the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program (CPSP), which is tracking suspected cases of MIS-C and serious COVID-19 complications in children. “The numbers across Canada – and we have comprehensive numbers from every Canadian jurisdiction – are very small.”
-
The more I read about this virus the more I thought it's not as simple as a pulmonary infection. In fact, it looks more like something that attacks the vasculature, and the pulmonary effects are the result of that.
Now, this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/nyregion/children-Kawasaki-syndrome-coronavirus.html
I've never seen Kawasaki syndrome.
My brother-in-law had it.
