Italian and British medical experts are investigating a possible link between the coronavirus pandemic and severe inflammatory disease among children who arrive at the hospital with high fever and blocked arteries.
Doctors compare this mysterious illness to a number of other conditions, including toxic shock syndrome and Kawasaki syndrome.
Doctors in northern Italy, one of the hardest-hit areas during the pandemic, have reported an increase in the number of children under the age of nine with a severe medical condition that looks like Kawasaki syndrome, which is more common in parts of Asia.
A children's hospital in Bergamo has had more than 20 cases of severe vascular inflammation in the past month. "That is six times more than we record on an annual basis," said pediatric cardiologist Mateo Čufreda.
The children had a high temperature and severe pain in the stomach, and some had skin rashes.
The doctors were concerned that the blood tests showed a severe inflammatory condition, similar to the elderly patients suffering from covid-19.
British authorities have reported that 12 children, some of whom have tested positive for covid-19, are in hospital in serious condition.
As a result, Britain's National Health Service issued a warning this week that "there is increasing concern that an inflammatory syndrome associated with Sars-CoV-2 is emerging in children in Britain, or that there may be another as-yet-unidentified infectious pathogen associated with this cases".
Health authorities in Britain have sent an urgent notice to pediatricians across the UK that there are seriously ill children with unusual symptoms in intensive care units.
One version of the warning was sent to all specialists working in intensive care units in UK hospitals.
Doctors were told to "subject children with these symptoms to blood tests and treat them as emergencies."
British Minister Matt Hancock said earlier yesterday that "there are children who died who did not have chronic diseases", but later his office clarified that he was referring to children who died of covid-19, but that it is not yet connected with a mysterious illness.
In England, there have been at least nine deaths under the age of 19 from the new covid-19.
"It is a new disease that we believe may have been caused by the coronavirus and covid-19, we are not 100 percent sure because some of the patients we tested were not positive, so we are doing a lot of research now, but it is something that worries us," Hancock said.
Until now, it was believed that children, compared to their parents and grandparents, were less susceptible to the deadly complications caused by the new coronavirus, although the mysterious inflammatory disease observed in Britain, Spain and Italy may require a reassessment.
"We are talking about an extremely small number of cases, so it is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason for concern," Hancock said.
Kawasaki disease, the cause of which is unknown, is associated with high fever, skin rash, swelling of the glands and, in severe cases, inflammation of the heart arteries.
Children who are positive for covid-19 or its antibodies have manifested gastrointestinal symptoms, such as stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea in the past two weeks, the Spanish association of pediatricians announced on Monday.
Although the children were otherwise in good health, their condition can drastically deteriorate within a few hours and cause shock with tachycardia, low blood pressure and toxic shock syndrome. Parents should be careful and contact doctors if they are concerned about their children's health, said Victoria Atkins, the British Deputy Home Secretary. "This shows us how fast the virus is moving and how unprecedented its consequences are," Atkins told Sky News.
As the coronavirus spreads around the world, scientists are learning more about the ways in which the disease works.
Australia's leading expert on infectious diseases in children, David Burgner, said that covid-19 appears to attack the blood vessels as much as it attacks the respiratory system.
"There are more and more reports that the disease we see in adults, the sudden worsening after a week, is actually caused by changes in the blood vessels and not by changes in the lungs," he said.
"The changes we hear about from Britain, which are typical of Kawasaki syndrome or toxic shock syndrome, are diseases that predominantly affect blood vessels," Burgner said.
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