After this week the World Health Organization reported more than 340 probable cases of a mysterious variant of hepatitis that is affecting children around the worldscientists further accelerated investigations to determine what are the factors that could trigger the disease.
A study published this Saturday by the scientific journal The Lancet this Saturday the hypothesis was raised that cases of severe acute hepatitis in children “could be a consequence” virus Covid 19 that started a pandemic in 2020. And he explained the reasons.
“Hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E viruses have not been found in these patients, but 72% of children with severe acute hepatitis in the UK who were tested for an adenovirus had an adenovirus detectedand of 18 subtyped cases in the UK, all were identified as adenovirus 41F“, pointed out the research carried out by doctors Petter Brodin and Moshe Arditi.
The study points out that infected children are too young to receive the coronavirus vaccine.
The research took as a study the latest cases diagnosed in UK, Europe, US, Israel and Japan.
In this regard, they detailed: “SARS-CoV-2 was identified in 18% of cases reported in the United Kingdom and in 11 (11%) of 97 cases in England; three other cases had tested positive in the 8 weeks prior to admission. Eleven of the 12 Israeli patients had had COVID-19 in recent months“, they reported emphasizing the relationship between the two viruses.
The specialists remarked that in all these cases the sick minors they are too young to receive the coronavirus vaccine.
Giving details about the possible link between the two diseases, they explained that SARS-CoV-2 infection can lead to the formation of a viral reservoir and if it persists in the gastrointestinal tract, it can lead to “immune activation”. It could trigger an activation of immune cells that “mediated by superantigens has been proposed as a causal mechanism of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.”
“We hypothesized that recently reported cases of severe acute hepatitis in children could be a consequence of adenovirus infection with intestinal trophism in children previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and carriers of viral reservoirs (appendix)“, they detailed.
Finally, the study concludes: “We suggest that SARS-CoV-2 persistence in feces, T-cell receptor diversion, and IFN-γ upregulation be investigated in children with acute hepatitis, because this could provide evidence of a SARS-CoV-2 superantigen mechanism in a host sensitized with adenovirus-41F”, it reads.
And it closes: “If evidence of superantigen-mediated immune activation is found, immunomodulatory therapies should be considered in children with severe acute hepatitis.”
LM