Province confirms child had virus-linked syndrome

Health officials have confirmed B.C.'s first case of a rare childhood inflammatory syndrome that has been linked to COVID-19.

The provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, said at her COVID-19 briefing on Thursday that the province's first case of multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C, had been detected in a young child.

MIS-C causes the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or gastrointestinal organs to become inflamed. Symptoms include fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes and fatigue.

It's unknown what causes the syndrome though it has been linked by some experts to the virus that causes COVID-19. Some children with MIS-C have been exposed to COVID-19 though not all test positive for the virus.

“We first heard about it back in April with children out of Italy and in New York City,” said Henry, adding there had been a worldwide effort to understand the links between MIS-C and COVID-19.

“There was a small number of children, some of whom had antibodies or had tested positive for COVID, so there was a worldwide effort to see if we can quantify this and understand it.”

Henry said the B.C. child, who is under the age of five, was found to have MIS-C and tested positive for COVID-19, but has recovered.

On Thursday, Henry reported 142 new cases of COVID-19.

The province's total number of reported COVID-19 cases is now 11,034, with 3,974 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 5,800 in Fraser Health, 239 in Vancouver Island Health, 587 in Interior Health, 345 in Northern Health and 89 people who are non-residents of Canada.