Hepatitis outbreak in children

[MumbleCrumbs]

I'm currently really quite unwell with Covid and not sleeping very well so please be gentle, but is anyone else really worried about the reports of this hepatitis outbreak in children now being monitored by the WHO? It seems to have gained traction over the last few days and lots of reports coming out about it now. I know very little about hepatitis but I know its quite rare to see such severe cases in children. Could Covid be the cause? I'm just feeling really quite worried about it and so sad for these poor children and their families, how horrendous after we've all just come through a pandemic .

@Delatron I thought I was quite clear about what I would like which is for you to stop pushing an anti-lockdown agenda on a thread concerning children's health.

There are numerous doctors and experts complaining about the biased headlines that are misrepresenting the current situation. Perhaps you should read them and start a thread in the Covid section about your lockdown position (alongside the many others already this).

Also don't surmise you know posters' views just because they're not leaping to support your tactic of disseminating politically biased information and spam posting on threads to close down discussion.

@DaisyQuakeJohnson As you will have seen from all the links. The effects of lockdown and social distancing are the leading hypothesis on the cause of this. Why are you shutting that discussion down? Fascinating.

This hasn’t occurred in a vacuum. Scientists are trying to get to the bottom of this. Yet you won’t let me discuss the leading reason being put forward for this.

Sorry but I will keep quoting experts and linking to the data as it evolves. Feel free to report my posts.

@AMindOfMyOwn She was the most vocal ‘expert’ supporter of lockdowns throughout this pandemic. I’m quite pleased it was her that has come out with the opposing view. I wouldn’t have expected her to have had a different opinion on this.

Many generations ago, the vast majority of children started pre-school aged 4-5. So they were effectively on "lockdown" by default and nobody came down with fatal hepatitis. The whole building immunity theory is very flimsy when you consider that starting nursery aged 0-1 and getting sick all the time is something that's only been happening extremely recently in western capitalist society. It's absolutely not the norm in many other countries. Lots of children around the world are relatively isolated from peers in their early years and there has never been a similar outbreak of a very specific and serious liver disease.

Gut feeling says that it's blatantly related to covid but they are scared shitless to admit it because the narrative has always been that children aren't affected as badly. Parents were brainwashed into thinking their kids will simply get over it like a sniffle and covid only affects very old or immunocompromised people. There was a comment in the Guardian (obviously not verifiable so feel free to discount) that 99% of cases in Israel have had covid and they are doing investigations in cross-reactions with adenovirus. It's also striking that most cases are cropping up in the UK, Italy and Alabama, places that people associate with being hit hardest by the pandemic. Alabama is the state that had fewest covid restrictions so presumably most people infected.

its now strongly liked to adenovirus (spelling!) so children being in contact makes sense in that they probably both caught adenovirus. It is an incredibly rare side effect - it is NOT related to Hep b ect or hep A (which is usually caught by contaminated food which is usually places with poor food hygiene or no sewerage - most cases are fairly mild - people even get through having real hep A (she says with feeling I caught it because of outbreak in Australia when I was very young ) & have no long term side effect except they no longer need to have the vaccine when traveling. There is no connection to vaccine & apparently no connection to covid cases either

Hmm ‘the whole building immunity’ theory is very thin is it? Maybe tell that to the scientists. Not starting school until 4/5 is not the same as a virtual lockdown?! Children would socialise together/ go to baby groups. They did not remain at home only seeing their parents.

@Delatron Some are finding it hard to face the fact that they chose the very elderly over children so they are doubling down.

Exactly @mmmmmmghturep That’s the crux of it all.

www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/scientists-investigate-hepatitis-outbreak-children-europe-us-2022-04-26/

From what I've seen it might be due to weakened immune systems due to lockdowns!

I think, regardless of where its come from or what it's linked to, it's an incredibly worrying advancement.

With baby groups reopening this week after the Easter holidays, it does make me nervous to be socialising my 1 year old, but that's counteracted by the fact that not allowing him to be around other children would be worse.

My little boy puts absolutely everything in his mouth (still teething) and that's a big fear for me anyway, even without a hepatitis outbreak.

I think all that we can do is be vigilant. Take reasonable caution where we can and keep a real good eye on our little ones to make sure that they aren't displaying symptoms- which seems to be a far stretch easier with this than covid has been since the beginning of the outbreak.

The research paper has five working hypotheses including susceptibility; prior Covid; a novel variant adenovirus; a Covid variant; environmental exposure etc.

In other areas (eg India, the US) it seems to have affected older DCs too. In India, most of the DCs (aged up to 16) had asymptomatic Covid about three weeks prior to presenting with hepatitis.

It's a concern especially since it seems to be affecting DCs who have had Covid and ones who haven't.

The technical briefing link referred to by @NotMrsTumble is here:
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1071198/acute-hepatitis-technical-briefing-1_4_.pdf

From this briefing:

The leading theory is currently "A cofactor affecting young children which is rendering normal adenovirus infections more severe or causing them to trigger immunopathology." (p29)

This cofactor MAY be "susceptibility, for example due to lack of prior exposure during the pandemic" OR it could be "a prior infection with SARS-CoV-2 or another infection, including an Omicron restricted effect" OR "a coinfection with SARS-CoV-2 or another infection" OR "a toxin, drug or environmental exposure".

Official lockdown, but they were still supposed to social distance, kept in bubbles in nursery/school and sanitation was rammed down their throats.

My two (now 4 and nearly 6) had no illnesses whatsoever between March 2020 and summer 2021, despite being at nursery and school!

And it's only really been the last few months of 2021 and this year that things have been back to normal bugs-wise (and actually catching up on the missed ones) with colds, sickness bugs (multiple in the case of my eldest), Covid and chicken pox. So their immune systems are taking a battering and it doesn't surprise me that it's leading to complications...

@User34352515 children not starting school until 4/5 is nothing remotely like lockdown.

My one year old doesn't attend nursery but has been sick loads this winter... Because he's building his immune system.

Children growing up in isolated areas is not the same as children being put in lockdown in build up areas.

The problem here is that the direct quotes from the experts in articles that have been posted here don't actually say what you think they are saying. Notably they don't explicitly state that lockdown is the leading hypothesis. Which goes back to what I was saying earlier about the content of the articles not really matching the headlines. It is one among many some of which fit the data than others, but it would be difficult to read all 41 pages of the technical briefing and decide that there was a scientific consensus that lockdown was the cause and the leading theory. They really don't seem to be sure of the exact mechanism yet and there are several things that they are looking at/investigating. I'm going to guess (with my armchair expert hat on obvs) that listing the potential causes from best to worst fit with the data in the way they did didn't allow them to quantify the differences in likelihood between item 1 and 2 but they were expecting the list to be taken in the context of the whole technical briefing document. The fact that the hepatologist in the Telegraph article suggests that covid itself as a cause in the same phrase as lockdown suggests that they are pretty close as options.

I don't think you aren't being allowed to discuss lockdown as a reason. It's the 'lockdown is THE leading reason and there is expert consensus on this' that people are objecting to.

@90s2now
I would strongly recommend that you contact your GP. If I got a call from a GP with that story, I would be bringing to child up to the children's ward to check whether their liver function tests and clotting studies had returned to normal. It's probably a bit late for some of the other tests (stool, throat swab etc) but worth a try. We'd discuss your child with the regional liver unit, to make sure we weren't missing anything. We'd then discuss with you whether you consented to being involved in the current national research project which is live at every hospital that sees children. (Basically the same tests, but sharing the data from the tests. Our lead research nurse is coming to the children's ward at least weekly to make certain we haven't missed any cases)

@nocoolnamesleft I didn't think the GP would be interested now that the illness and symptoms have passed but after reading what you've said, I'll give them a call tomorrow. I do have photos of DS that you can see the yellow tinge so I'll see if they are any use to them.

Brilliant. Better to play safe.

@nocoolnamesleft Thanks for the advice. I've been debating weather or not I should contact them. I don't want to waste anyone's time but you're right, better safe than sorry.

This is all very concerning, and made more difficult by the fact that we will get a lot of politicised bullshit from anti-lockdown interests in the UK. Hopefully we will get some robust science at some point.

The government will be praying it is adenovirus and not covid given they were extremely gung-ho about children catching covid.

I’m happy to stick to the facts and the data. 75% of the children in the study had a recent adenovirus 16% had Covid. (Which is to be expected in current times).

There are obviously many unknowns at the moment and lots of ‘could have’ and ‘may have’.

I actually hope I’m wrong and that it is just a random event that passes. Because it would be truly awful if lockdown has had this impact. I hope that they get to the bottom of it quickly and cases don’t increase. This is far more serious to young children than Covid ever was.

I’ll await more info from the experts and scientists. (not Mumsnetters).

Many years ago children & their families lived in overcrowded conditions. The infant mortality rate was very high and the medical profession did not have sophisticated means to identify viral infections.
Children died of most of the then common childhood illnesses that have been virtually eradicated. Hepatitis A was rife as it is a waterborn infection. Diagnosis was based on symptoms not complex blood tests so how could we possibly know that this is a novel adenovirus. It could have been around for years and, like many viruses, an opportunists waiting for a dip in natural immunity of the population.
Lockdown and isolation creates a perfect storm for theses types of infections. This pandemic was always going to have long term ramifications for the health of the population, late diagnosis of cancers, poor screening for heart disease and screening and many more issues. Deleted health systems worldwide and a general fear of seeking care in medical settings are going to have massive cost implications around the globe.
I’m in my late 50s and probably the last generation for whom vaccination was limited. I had measles, mumps and rubella as a child. Hepatitis A was very common . Although concerning, an outbreak of hepatitis may just be a statistical blip.

I mean what would a leading liver paediatric specialist know about this...!