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Kawasaki Disease! The Latest Weird Illness From Coronavirus. First there was the weird loss of smell and taste associated with COVID-19 infections. Then there was “COVID toes,” (Spots On Toes And Rashes), known as pernio or chilblains, and peculiar rashes. Now we have another unusual syndrome causing illness in children Kawasaki disease. Many of the rashes have been thought to be due to a vasculitis, or blood vessel inflammation.
One of the mysteries of COVID-19 is why children have been much less severely affected than adults by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the illness. In fact, only 2% of cases described have been in patients under age 20. Most kids have been asymptomatic or had very mild illness; a small number have died.
Kawasaki Disease now added to Coronavirus Symptoms
Symptoms of a rare inflammatory condition have been identified in at least 15 children in New York City hospitals, alarming pediatricians across the country and raising concerns about a possible link to the coronavirus.
The patients exhibited symptoms typically seen in Kawasaki disease or toxic shock syndrome, including a persistent fever, according to the city’s health department.
The children were between 2 and 15 years old and were identified between April 29 and May 3. While all the patients had a fever, more than half of them reported a rash, abdominal pain, vomiting or diarrhea.
In an alert issued to doctors, the NYC health department said less than half of the patients exhibited respiratory symptoms. Four of the cases tested positive for COVID-19, while 11 tested negative.
No deaths have been reported, but many of the patients required blood pressure support and five of them required mechanical ventilation, the city’s health department said.
Both Kawasaki disease and COVID-19 are illusive conditions that doctors are still studying. Some experts doubt there’s a link between the two while others don’t believe the mysterious symptoms belong to Kawasaki at all.
What is Kawasaki disease?
“Kawasaki disease is one of the great mysteries in pediatrics,” said Dr. Frank Esper, a physician at the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases. “It’s something we’ve been dealing with for decades.”
Symptoms include a fever of at least 101 degrees that lasts for five days or more, a rash and swollen glands in the neck, according to Britain’s National Health Service. Esper says that it predominately affects children between the ages of 2 and 6, tends to run during “mini-epidemics,” and is more likely to happen in the winter than the summer.
