CDC Liver warning explained amid outbreak of rare disease among kids

On Thursday, April 21, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a health alert about unusual liver complications in children throughout the nation. In the advisory, the organization has asked medical professionals to be on the lookout for rare cases of hepatitis in children.

The advisory stated,

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is issuing this Health Alert Network (HAN) Health Advisory to notify clinicians and public health authorities of a cluster of children identified with hepatitis and adenovirus infection.”

While the USA has recorded a small number of such cases in children as of now, the outbreak of the rare disease in Europe has affected dozens of younger patients.

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Why did the CDC warn about liver diseases in children?

As per CDC’s press release, the outbreak was first spotted in November 2021 in Alabama, where five younger patients were found to have heavily damaged livers. Three of them suffered complete organ failures.

The report also stated that nine such patients were documented till February 2022. All of the nine patients tested positive for adenovirus. None of the children had suffered from COVID-19 previously. Two of the nine children required liver transplants. Many of the children tested positive for the adenovirus type 41 variant of the virus, similar to most of the cases discovered in Europe.

According to the CDC, adenoviruses are “common viruses that cause a range of illness. They can cause cold-like symptoms, fever, sore throat, bronchitis, pneumonia, diarrhea, and pink eye (conjunctivitis).” As per Velocity EHS, adenovirus 41 is transmitted via the “faecal-oral route.” The virus is known to cause gastroenteritis (stomach flu) in children.

However, the role of adenovirus 41 in causing hepatitis (inflammation of the liver due to viral infection) is still unclear at the moment. The CDC stated that “a possible association between pediatric hepatitis and adenovirus infection is currently under investigation.”

Meanwhile, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) found that the virus has no correlation with COVID-29 vaccines. Thus, the cause of severe hepatitis in children is still unknown. They revealed:

“The incident team in the United Kingdom, where most of the cases have occurred to date, consider that an infective cause is most likely based on the clinical and epidemiological features of the cases under investigation.”

Similar cases are popping up in other regions, but the investigations conducted by both health agencies are expected to come up with the origin and a remedy soon. Meanwhile, the U.N. health agency has announced that the frequency of such cases might increase in the coming days.