San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Ailment tied to virus rises in Bay Area kids
In the U.S., 2,060 children have been diagnosed with MISC, and 30 have died.
Mirroring national trends, local cases of a coronaviruslinked inflammatory syndrome in kids have risen after a surge in infections in the Bay Area in December and January.
The syndrome, called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, is a condition in which various parts of the body become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or gastrointestinal organs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Children who develop MISC may experience fevers, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes and/or extreme exhaustion, the CDC says. It’s unclear what causes MISC, but most children who have been diagnosed with it either contracted the coronavirus at some point or had been exposed to someone who had tested positive for the virus.
Typically, children who are exposed to or contract the coronavirus don’t start experiencing MISC symptoms until about a month later, according to Dr. Alan Schroeder of the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. That’s why the increase in cases is happening now — after the holiday season as cases are coming down.
UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals saw their first case of MISC in July, according to Dr. Ted Chaconas, chief medical officer of the Oakland location. Since then, he said the two children’s hospitals — one in Oakland and the other in San Francisco — have jointly treated one to three patients for the syndrome each month.
That was until January.
In the first month of the year, Chaconas said the hospitals saw 12 cases of MISC. In February, so far, the hospitals have treated five patients for the syndrome.
“At first, I think most pediatric centers had felt that we had been let off the hook a little with COVID because acute COVID rarely causes severe diseases in children,” Chaconas said. “But then this MISC definitely has us worried.”
In the U.S., 2,060 children have been diagnosed with the condition, and 30 have died, according to the CDC.
The hospitals’ recent cases do not appear to be any more severe than previous cases, Chaconas said. About half of MISC patients at the Benioff Children’s Hospitals have required a stay in the intensive care unit, with one child needing to be put on a heartlung bypass. All have recovered, and the hospitals have reported no deaths.
Studies have shown that MISC has disproportionately impacted Black and Latino children, with them making up nearly 70% of all cases. Chaconas said he’s also seen this trend locally, calling it a “very disheartening kind of disparity.”
Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford also recently saw an increase in cases of MISC, according to Schroeder, a critical care physician.
From August to January, the hospital treated between zero and three cases of the syndrome each month, according to data obtained by The Chronicle. Data is not available for February yet, but Schroeder said cases have increased and are probably about double January’s three cases.
MISC is difficult to diagnose because there is no specific test for it and patients exhibit different symptoms, he said.
Despite the MISC surge, local children’s hospitals have also seen a dramatic decline in the number of children coming in for respiratory viruses and viral infections, which Chaconas attributed to social distancing, mask wearing and children not attending school in person.