Rare, severe liver damage reported in kids in U.S. and Europe

LINK

Public health officials in Europe and the United States are investigating dozens of puzzling cases of severe hepatitis in young children.

Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver. The cause is often a virus, but the viruses that commonly cause the illness — hepatitis A, B, C, D and E — have been ruled out in the cases in question, leaving doctors searching for the culprit.

In several cases, the illness was so severe that the children needed a liver transplant. No deaths have been reported.

The World Health Organization on Friday said it was investigating 74 cases of severe acute hepatitis in children under age 13 in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Three cases were also reported in Spain, the WHO said. It's not clear when symptoms for most of the children began, but of the first 10 identified in the U.K., nine got sick in March and one in January 2022, according to the WHO.

In the U.S., nine cases have been reported in children ages 6 and younger in Alabama.

Dr. Wes Stubblefield, district medical officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health, said that all of the children were otherwise healthy before becoming ill, and that there is no obvious link among the children.

The Alabama cases were first reported by Stat News.

With the common hepatitis viruses ruled out, the current leading theory is that a different virus, called adenovirus type 41, is to blame.

Five of the nine children in Alabama, identified between October 2021 and February, tested positive for adenovirus type 41. But adenoviruses are respiratory viruses that typically cause the common cold, and are not generally associated with liver injury.

"This is unusual," Stubblefield said. "This virus hasn't, in the past, been associated with this constellation of signs, symptoms and injury."