Children with perplexing syndrome linked to covid-19 may be experiencing deadly 'cytokine storm'

[usaf-vet]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/28/children-with-perplexing-syndrome-linked-covid-19-may-be-experiencing-deadly-cytokine-storm/

A study about the children, ages 13, 12, 10, and 5, published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, provides the first detailed look at the rapid progression of a mysterious syndrome linked to covid-19 that has alarmed public health officials.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month issued an alert warning doctors to be on the lookout for what they are calling multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, which is now believed to have impacted approximately 300 U.S. children. It appears to have some characteristics in common with Kawasaki disease, a rare illness that typically impacts children under the age of 5 and whose cause is unknown.

At Mount Sinai, the children, who came through the emergency department, all appeared well initially despite having multi-day fevers. Each complained of different symptoms, but blood tests, imaging and heart monitoring showed they all appeared to be having an exaggerated inflammatory reaction in what doctors suspect is post-viral complication of covid-19.

Christopher Strother, the director of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai, described it as the pediatric version of the “cytokine storm” occurring in some adults with severe illness from the novel coronavirus.

“When adults get covid they might get that terrible lung disease from the inflammatory response,” he said. “This seems a version of how that looks in kids.”