Rare Inflammatory Syndrome Linked To Children With COVID-19 Can Be Fatal in Adults, Too; Study Indicates
In April this year, there was already a warning related to these new findings from the United States and Europe doctors of youngsters with fever, skin rashes, and swelling of the glands which had been diagnosed with the virus.
Since then, a number of case reports and series have already been published of the same condition also called "Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in Adults" or MIS-A.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC, at least 27 individuals whose age is older than 18 years in the US and the United Kingdom have had the illness, and it can result in hospital confinement, "intubation and death."
A mother and daughter wait in line to be tested for Covid-19 at a city test site in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park.
Originally Observed in Kids
Initially, this syndrome, called the "Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome or PMIS or Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C, was observed only in kids.
At first, the disorder, known as 'Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome' (PMIS) or 'Multi-system Inflammatory syndrome in Children' (MIS-C) was only seen in kids.
Originally, it was believed to be associated with Kawasaki disease, an illness that causes inflammation in the blood vessels' walls, affecting mostly children aged below five years old.
In April this year, MIS-C cases were initially reported in Britain, Italy, and Spain and started cropping up in the US the net month.
According to reports, over 1,000 cases have been recorded and reported across the nation from which "at least 20 children have died."
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Link to COVID-19
Most of the children, as well as adolescents, develop MIS-C from two to four weeks from contracting COVID-19.
Reports have it that not every child that has developed MIS-C has tested positive for COVID-19. However, reports also said that 98 percent of these kids have enough for the doctors to believe that the two diseases are linked.
The CDC also reported, a similar disorder in adults started to appear in June 2020. Specifically, the 16 patients for whom the Center's data were available ranged from 21 to 50 years of age, and all belonged to "racial or ethnic minority groups."
Nine of these patients were found to have no underlying medical conditions. Nevertheless, of the patients that did, the CDC reported, conditions specifically included "type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and sleep apnea."
Symptoms that were typically reported included fever, cough, diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea. More so, all patients experienced effects identified in the heart like arrhythmias, high troponin levels, or dysfunction of one of the ventricles.
Additionally, 10 patients tested positive for COVID-19 when they were first assessed and six needed to undergo antibody testing to confirm the diagnosis.
Among the patients that were admitted to the intensive care unit, three had to be intubated while two others died.
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Severe Respiratory Problems
According to the CDC, patients with MIS-C tend to develop severe respiratory problems compared to MIS-A patients.
Reports said half of the 16 adult patients did not experience any respiratory symptoms while the other half experienced mild problems.
The authors wrote in their study that the 27 patients had neurologic, dermatologic, cardiovascular, and dermatologic symptoms minus severe respiratory disease and, at the same time, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 "The virus that causes COVID-19."
These patients' reports, the study authors said, emphasized the recognition of a disease referred to as2 MIS-A, the "heterogeneity of clinical signs and symptoms," and the antibody testing's role in determining similar occurrences in adults.
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Oct 07, 2020 07:20 AM EDT
