In Marseille, the first French child died from a disease close to Kawasaki syndrome, a serious childhood disease possibly caused by the coronavirus. Where does inflammatory disease come from? Countries that have reported cases are trying to understand this mysterious phenomenon, which has, however, caused very few deaths. Two identified for the moment, one in the United Kingdom and the other in France, in Marseille.
🔴 [INFO ALERT] Death of a child suffering from a form close to #Kawasaki disease, the first in #France
➡️ https://t.co/U4ltH7y4kX#coronavirus #COVID ー 19 # Covid_19 # Covid19 #Marseille pic.twitter.com/xsSmsuICl4
What connection with the Covid-19?
"Initial hypotheses indicate that this syndrome could be linked to Covid-19," WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday, calling on "all clinicians around the world to work [to] better understand this syndrome." in children ”.
"The association with infection by SARS-CoV-2 [the coronavirus which causes Covid-19] has not yet been established, but it seems plausible," said the European Center for Prevention and disease control (ECDC) in a report released Friday. He described the new pediatric disease as a "multi-system inflammatory syndrome [which can affect all organs] temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection".
The hypothesis of a link is supported by the fact that these pediatric cases broke out during the Covid-19 epidemic and that they were often tested positive, with PCR tests (for an infection in progress) and / or serology (for past infection).
"These results are very much in favor of a link between infection with SARS-CoV-2 and this pathology", judges the French health agency Santé publique France in a point published Thursday evening. She estimates that in affected children, this disease occurs “within an average of […] four weeks after infection” with the coronavirus.
Scientists hypothesize that the immune system of these children has run out of steam a few weeks after infection with the coronavirus. “They had the virus, their bodies fought it. But now there is this delayed and excessive immune response, "said pediatrician Sunil Sood of the Cohen Children's Medical Center in New York to AFP.
This new disease intrigues the world health authorities, especially since children are only very little affected by the severe forms of Covid-19.
How many cases, how many deaths?
"About 230 suspected cases [...] have been reported in Europe and the United Kingdom," according to the ECDC, which insists that this disease is "rare". These European cases resulted in "two deaths, one in the United Kingdom and one in France," says ECDC.
The death in France, announced Friday, occurred last Saturday. It is a 9-year-old child who died in Marseille from "neurological damage related to cardiac arrest," Professor Fabrice Michel of La Timone hospital told AFP. Serological tests have shown that he "had been in contact" with the coronavirus, but had not developed the symptoms of Covid-19.135 cases have been reported in France since the beginning of March, according to health authorities.
In England, a 14-year-old boy died. He was part of a group of eight children with this rare disease, treated in April at the Evelina Children's Hospital in London.
Finally, in the United States, a hundred cases, including at least three deaths, have been reported in New York State.
The first alert came from the United Kingdom in late April. Since then, other cases have notably been reported in Italy, Spain and Germany.
What are the symptoms ?
Symptoms include high fever, abdominal pain and digestive problems, rash, conjunctivitis, reddened tongue, swelling and raspberry appearance, or even heart problems. "These symptoms are a mixture of those of Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome," notes the ECDC.
Described for the first time in 1967 in Japan, Kawasaki disease causes inflammation of the blood vessels in affected children.
If the symptoms are close, the scientists insist that there are differences with the current cases: the inflammatory character and the cardiac attacks are "much more marked" in the cases probably linked to Covid-19 than in the disease of classic Kawasaki, according to Santé publique France. In addition, the new disease can affect older children and even adolescents, while Kawasaki mainly affects children under 2 years of age.
To mark these differences, the French Ministry of Health speaks of "pseudo-Kawasaki" and studies in English use the term "Kawasaki like" ("similar to Kawasaki").
Published in the medical journal The Lancet on Wednesday , an Italian study on the region of Bergamo estimates that the number of cases resembling Kawasaki disease has increased by 30 with the epidemic of Covid-19. Ten children (with an average age of 7 and a half) were diagnosed with this type of symptom between February 18 and April 20, compared to 19 (with an average age of 3) over all 5 years previous.
The genetic track?
Why does this new disease affect some children and not others? The question is bothering researchers, while the origin of Kawasaki disease itself is not known (it could mix infectious, genetic and immune factors).
One of the avenues to explore is genetic. In England, six of the first eight cases observed were black children, "of Afro-Caribbean origin", which could suggest a genetic track, according to a study of May 7 in The Lancet .
The child who died in France was of African origin, according to his doctor.
Our file on the coronavirus
To add to the mystery, no similar case has been reported in children in Asia, including China, where the virus appeared in December. This is all the more surprising since classic Kawasaki disease affects Asians more.
In France, the Imagine Institute, specialized in genetics, is conducting research to find out more. The objective is to "define the mechanism underlying this inflammatory disease and then, once the mechanism understood, propose targeted therapies", explains to AFP Frédéric Rieux-Laucat, specialist in pediatric inflammatory diseases who supervises some of these research.
World
Coronavirus: United States alerts to virus-related illness in children
Health
Health Minister Olivier Véran concerned about a mysterious serious illness affecting children
- Disease
- Coronavirus
- Marseille
- Society
- Health
- Covid 19
- Child