COVID has caused other viruses to act bizarrely, experts say, and children are at risk.
The coronavirus has been the world’s top concern for two years, with all resources expended trying to control it.
But its existence has affected other bugs’ trends and behavior, experts say.
It includes hepatitis in children, monkeypox, respiratory disease and scarlet fever.
Some have mainly affected children – and parents have been urged to be aware of the symptoms and to check their children’s vaccination status.
dr Scott Roberts, a Yale medical expert, told the Independent: “Now that people have unmasked themselves, places are opening up and we’re seeing viruses behaving in very strange ways that they weren’t behaving before.
“We have never seen a flu season extend into June in the United States. Clearly Covid had a very big impact on that.”
time inside
Because we spent so much time indoors, immunity to common viruses dropped.
Normally, children in kindergarten and school would have contracted a number of bugs and slowly built up a defense in their early years.
But they go to school without any protection, leading to a flood of viruses and a change in data trends.
There have been unusual spikes in RSV – a respiratory infection – in the summer months when it is usually a problem in winter.
Outbreaks of scarlet fever, or what is known as “Victorian” disease, have been popping up across the country in recent months.
Quite unusually, a mysterious outbreak of hepatitis (inflammation of the liver) in children has occurred this year.
Research by the UK Health and Safety Agency (UKHSA) continues to suggest a link to previous adenovirus infection.
“But the investigation continues to unravel the exact reason for the surge in cases,” said Dr. Renu Bindra, Senior Medical Advisor at UKHSA.
Prof Simon Taylor-Robinson, Hepatologist, Imperial College London, said: “Given their seasonality, it may be that children have been isolated from their peers in the last two years and therefore have not contracted the usual childhood viral diseases that build up immunity .
“Therefore exposure to viruses such as adenoviruses could now be responsible for the more exaggerated symptoms seen by some of these previously isolated children.”
The UKHSA said it was investigating whether co-infection with another virus, such as Covid, was the driving force.
“Some of the children with acute hepatitis have recently had Covid-19 infection,” UKHSA said.
“But in this age group there was a high number of Covid-19 infections, so this is not unexpected.”
Jab-Drop
The fallout from the pandemic has led to a drop in vaccination rates among children.
dr Vanessa Saliba, consultant epidemiologist at the UK Health and Safety Agency (UKHSA), previously told The Sun: “The disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has been the main reason for the decline in childhood vaccine uptake seen in recent years was observed for two years.
“This drop in coverage means we have less protection against infectious diseases like measles with risk of outbreaks.”
Measles vaccination rates have fallen to their lowest level in a decade, the UK Health and Safety Agency (UKHSA) said in February.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says 95 percent of people need to be vaccinated against measles to keep it under control.
However, the latest figures from September showed that just 85.5 percent of five-year-olds have received their two doses of the MMR vaccine – which protects against measles, mumps and rubella.
resources
The majority of public health resources have been devoted to tracking Covid in recent years.
Other diseases such as monkeypox and tuberculosis may have spread quietly as a result, the Independent reported.
In March, the UKHSA called on the public and healthcare professionals to help reverse the upward trend in tuberculosis (TB) cases.
Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said it was “very worrying” to see a rise in cases after “significant progress has been made over the last decade in eliminating tuberculosis in England”.
TB incidence has been rising since 2019, and although it stalled in 2020 due to Covid, it has since been on the rise again.
Babies, toddlers and young children are at a higher risk of contracting tuberculosis than healthy adults.
The World Health Organization warned in early June that monkeypox may have been spreading in communities for “months or possibly a few years.”
The bug was spotted hundreds of times in May in countries where it’s not normally seen.
This includes Great Britain. Almost all cases, however, involved men in their 30s and 40s.
dr Babak Ashrafi, Clinical Director at ZAVA UK, said: “Investigations are ongoing into how the virus spread and what triggered the outbreak in the first place.
“Did the Covid-19 virus and/or lockdowns play a role?
“There is no evidence that monkeypox virus is linked to Covid-19 or any of the vaccines.
“However, the easing of lockdown and the return to international travel may have reopened the door for the transmission of new infections.”