Child dies of unknown strain of hepatitis
Irish case linked to mystery outbreaks around the globe
A CHILD in Ireland has died from an unexplained type of hepatitis and another has received a liver transplant, the HSE has confirmed.
The cases are linked to a mystery strain of hepatitis, of which there have been around 450 cases reported worldwide, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
The HSE said there have been six probable hepatitis cases in Ireland in the past two months, which is ‘more than would usually be expected over this period of time’.
All those affected have been children aged between one and 12 and all were hospitalised. The HSE said the cause of acute hepatitis in these children is unknown and all possibilities are being examined.
Dr Yvonne Williams, clinical director of Shannon Medical Centre, said parents should not panic but that they should be ‘alert to the very rare possibility of a very serious case of hepatitis in a child’. She advised parents: ‘If your child’s urine is dark, if their poo is grey or pale and particularly if the white of their eyes or their skin turns yellow, they need to be seen that day.’
She told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘It is worrying for parents that we don’t know what is causing it and it is causing a very severe strain of hepatitis compared to what we would normally see in children.
‘But it is very rare so I think it’s
‘Hoping that numbers stay low’
important to bear in mind that most children who are sick won’t have hepatitis and won’t have this particular type of hepatitis. It is worrying that we’ve had six reported cases and that does include, sadly, one child who has died and one child who has needed a liver transplant, and that’s life-changing for that child and their family.
‘So we would be hoping that the numbers remain very low and that this doesn’t continue.’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US found that 90% of children with the new strain have ended up in hospital and 14% have needed a liver transplant. Dr Williams said: ‘What we’re hearing is that there were children who were previously healthy who have died from this form of hepatitis and others who have required a liver transplant and that is quite unusual.’
Dr Williams said that because we do not know what is causing this illness, we also cannot know how it spreads or how transmissible it is.
She said that a suggestion that there could be a link to contact with dogs was just based on the fact that a certain percentage of those infected had dogs at home and ‘the numbers weren’t strong enough to suggest a definite link’.
Health officials have ruled out the Covid vaccine as a possible cause, as most children who have come down with the illness have not had the vaccine, but one theory is that it might be a delayed complication to a Covid infection. None of the Irish cases who were tested on admission to hospital had evidence of a Covid infection at the time.
Authorities are also investigating a link to an increase in infections caused by adenovirus, a common cause of childhood illness.
The World Health Organisation reported on April 23 that adenovirus had been detected in more than 40% of cases.
Of the approximately 450 global cases, more than a third are from the United Kingdom. In addition to the one death in Ireland, there have been five reported in Indonesia, five in the US and one in Palestine.
The Irish cases have no links to each other or to the UK cases, the HSE said, and none had a recent travel history to the UK. A spokesperson for the HSE said: ‘Ireland is liaising closely with ECDC, UK and WHO colleagues in efforts to identify the cause of this illness.’