Hepatitis outbreak in children

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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 .

It is of course possible that BOTH lockdown AND previous covid infection make this type of complication from a specific adenovirus infection more likely.

I hope they figure it out soon, and in the meantime I do wish we'd ventilate and put air filters in schools & nurseries because if an adenovirus is the triggering factor then both will help reduce rates of infection (and hence reduce rates of children with this particular type of hepatitis). The benefits of ventilation and air filtration are not just in relation to covid.

I do agree that what happened with baby groups was awful - but it was really a combination - from what I saw - of austerity and covid because mostly these groups are now volunteer run. Surestart has disappeared and there are hardly any state run groups locally - and people were less willing to run them with covid as a risk. I don't think it was just covid. With schools open as they were there wasn't really a decent reason why not to run baby groups. The difference in provision for very early years between DD1 and DD2 for me was horrendous. Surestart was still around for DD1 - hardly anything for DD2 and that was pre covid.

@theemperorhasnoclothes Yes most of the cases have occurred in 5 years and under

If it was a lockdown issue, you'd expect the cohort affected to be younger than 5 though. My daughter is 5 and the only period she wasn't in school as normal (or on normal school hols) was March-July 2020. Up to March 2020 she'd had over 3 years of exposure to bugs, a few months break and then back to school as normal in Sept 2020 and caught lots and lots of bugs from then on including, I think adenoviruses (based on symptoms). If this was lockdown related surely we'd have seen it in this age group sooner?

I do know that many of the baby groups she went to prior to starting school nursery at 3 didn't open again until recently - I think a lot of it was due to lack of volunteers so I can see that children born end of 2019 and later, if not in nursery, may not have had exposure to bugs. I'd volunteered at one of them but my kids now both school age so obviously not going to do it, and it hasn't been 'handed over' as it normally would.

Which is why it's interesting to know if nursery children are affected as much as non-nursery or not.

I honestly don't think 4.5 months of lack of exposure is going to cause such an effect and especially given it's been a good year and two thirds of constantly catching bugs since then. Why have we seen nothing abnormal since then? DD's caught approximately the same amount of bugs in school nursery and reception with the same severity and duration my older DD did at that age way before covid.

@theemperorhasnoclothes But the cohort mainly affected is the under 5's.

There is also the consideration that some parents did not send their children back to school out of fear.

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My youngest has a tummy ache and keeps crying. Absolutely shitting myself that she’s got this hepatitis. It would be just my luck. 😭

@Florrey here are the symptoms of hepatitis. It's not something to take lightly at all

Hepatitis symptoms are wide-ranging and overlap with many common illnesses. A child with hepatitis may experience fever (low-grade or more significant), fatigue, joint or muscle pain, loss of appetite or nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.

Children may also have abdominal pain or tenderness, particularly in the right upper abdomen, which is where the liver is located, Dr. Weymann said, and it is important to seek urgent medical attention any time a child shows sign of severe pain when their abdomen is touched. Doctors may consider other possible causes of abdominal pain, like appendicitis. Some children may have darker urine, or pale or clay-colored stools.
Jaundice, or yellowing of the skin and eyes, is a hallmark sign of hepatitis — although it is possible to have significant liver inflammation and show no signs of jaundice.

Where have you got 4.5 months of lack of exposure from? And therefore all these scientists are wrong?

It’s like people are rewriting history or maybe blanking the last 2 years from their memory? We had 3 lockdowns, we had social distancing for a lot longer than 4.5 months in total. And mainly, baby groups and all the other places that babies mix were largely shut. People were working from home. I didn’t see my own family for 5 months the first time and then 6 months the second time.

My cousin had a baby March 2020. Nobody met that baby for a long time due to lockdown. Then the meet ups were outside. Then it was rule of 6. She didn’t go to a single baby group as they weren’t open. The baby did not meet up and play with other babies as that wasn’t allowed. For a lot longer than 4.5 months!

@theemperorhasnoclothes are you in a different country. You repeatedly say schools were shut in 2020 for a few months but they were shut here again from Jan 21 - March 21.

My first child didn’t go to school (apart from a week in July) from Jan 2020-Sept 2020. Then off again for 3 months in 2021. But as repeatedly pointed out it’s not school children but under 5s. I will find a breakdown but I would say more like under 4s with the odd under 5 but not school children.

Why did your child not go to school for that long @Delatron .

Appreciate that things might have been different for younger dcs but mines went to school Jan to March 20, lockdown until June and back at school from June to mid July.

One thing I’m nit hearing a lot about is the amount of people/children who have caught covid (even if asymptomatic) in the last two year.
Depending on the country/age, we are talking about 70 to 85% of people.

So in the case of those children, I’m expecting at least 70% of them to have been infected with covid at some point (maybe less for those who are 1.5yo and younger??). I’m wondering what sort of long term Impact this has had on children that young.

It’s like people are rewriting history or maybe blanking the last 2 years from their memory?
We were isolated from March 2020. Even after the first lockdown was lifted, we didn’t go out because firstly all the toddler groups were still closed, secondly I’m CEV so it wasn’t safe for me, and thirdly I had to stay safe to protect my elderly parents (I was their sole contact and carer). We stayed at home until summer 2021 when myself and my parents had all received two vaccines. So there was a good 18 months where my DC weren’t mixing. Even now they only mix at school, because I’m autistic so I have no friends to take them to mix with.

So if we want to look at under 5s instead of schools I actually think the picture is likely to be better not worse. It means in reality we're looking at nursery and childminder settings primarily, rather than schools.

I'm pretty sure nurseries and other early years settings closed in Lockdown Mk1 but were open for critical workers, and were then permitted to open the entirety of the rest of the pandemic? That agrees with a parliamentary note I have read. Disruption to attendance might well have occurred when children had cold symptoms so were kept off but that wouldn't really be evidence that they weren't getting enough exposure to viruses.

I guess from the point of view of seeing if it was lack of interaction with other children one would therefore need to establish if there was a correlation between a lack of early years provision attendance and suffering hepatitis. 93% of 3-4 year olds attend early years per the latest dataset I can find, and 70% of two year olds.

But not all babies go to nursery or childminders. Especially during a pandemic when parents were working from home.

In normal times 93% of 3-4 year olds attend an early years setting. I doubt that many did in the last 2 years. And those 3-4 year olds from 2020 will now be over 5 years so not the cohort we are looking at.

The 0-3 year olds are the age group from the last 2 years that will be impacted.

During the last few years EVERYONE’s social interactions will have been greatly reduced with social distancing and businesses being shut (my business involving close social contact went online for a year). The point is this reduced social contact in all areas (nursery, baby groups, parties, family gatherings) will have had a huge impact on this age group in terms of not only viruses that were circulating (remember we had no flu). So adenoviruses were greatly reduced due to all the general social distancing. Even if babies did go to nursery the usual coughs and colds weren’t circulating in as great numbers.

I didn’t have a cold for 2 years. Or any illness. That’s very unusual (for me with school age class).

Scientists are worried about this. One theory is that due to suppression the viruses come back stronger. Remember the super cold?

They are working through all the hypotheses but let’s not rewrite history here. Social contact was reduced for ALL in many ways in the last few years

@AMindOfMyOwn It was only year 6 that went back in June 2020? Maybe reception too?

It was pretty standard for a YR5 child to not go to school from March 2020 until September 2020. We had one week in July which was staggered and in a strict bubble. So in terms of being exposed to viruses in July in a strict class bubble - not much exposure . Predictably he didn’t pick up any illness and I doubt that week had any impact.

But as I’ve said this isn’t about school age children. That Yr5 kid is now in big school. We’re taking babies here.

@AMindOfMyOwn All children will be repeatedly exposed to Covid throughout their lifetimes thus building good immunity.

@AMindOfMyOwn Did yours go to school from Jan21-March 21 then? When the entire country was closed down?

It’s like I’m living in a parallel universe here. Schools were only shut for a few months, it was all fine, lockdown was short and wonderful! Social distancing never happened.

I’m sure I’m not mistaken that my kid was home for a total of 8 months. 4 the first time and 3 the second. I know because I was bloody homeschooling him.

Did the lockdown is 2021 not happen??

@Delatron well I remember it as you do.

I couldn't take my little one to a baby group until he was 8 months old (born in August 2020). And that was a group that opened up really early compared to all the others because the owner lobbied the local council. But at that group we all sat 2 meters apart, everything touched was being sterilized to within a inch of it's life! Not normal by any means. Some groups I go to now still wipe all the toys with sterilizer... children need to get bugs!! I'd much rather my little one chews on a toy that's been in another's mouth than one wiped with cancer causing chemicals...but I think I'm a bit old fashioned

@Olivestone I’m also worried about the use of anti bac sanitiser everywhere. So bad for our gut health.

Hopefully sense will prevail soon. Pleased you remember as I do. Felt I was going mad, posters talking about 4.5 months of lockdown and then that’s that.

@Delatron i didn’t mention ANYTHING about 2021.
i was just responding to your Jan to sept 2020 comment….

why you think I’ve forgotten about the 2021 lockdown I have no idea…..

fwiw my dcs were back at school in June and July. They were secondary though hence I ASKED if it was different for the much younger children….

Sorry… I feel in need to be more precise and say I am talking about the June to July 2020 period so there is no misunderstanding….

I don’t think that’s what the research says.

On the contrary they are talking about immunity rapidly disappearing after infection. That’s why a certificate of having had covid can only be used for 3 months after infection for a covid pass (I’m thinking travelling there or in places like France when they still had a covid pass).
Thats also why many people caught covid several times in a short period (eg omicron in December/January and then now - two different variants)

I did quite clearly state there is potentially a difference in the 0-3 cohort but it does not apply to those of 4 and 5 (like my daughter) so it depends what the statistics are on the hepatitis. It shouldn't be too difficult to find out if those affected had been in nursery / school.

I also mentioned that 75% (roughly) of both my DDs classes were in school in the 2021 lockdown, so way over half of all children. The 'key worker' criteria was very widely drawn and only one parent had to fit it. There were loads of threads on MN about this at the time. It would have been easier and fairer to just have everyone in, but instead some children were really disadvantaged at home and the teachers had to do both online and in (almost full) classroom teaching. It was a stupid pointless exercise that made it a lot harder for teachers.

My kids have been catching many illnesses quite regularly since Sept 2020 - so that's a year and 2/3 of catching bugs and building immunity. I would have expected any 'lockdown' effect to have been seen more in Sept 2021 in schools and nurseries.

Whilst the rest of society might have had social distancing schools NEVER had social distancing - it's impossible with class sizes in state schools. They NEVER had any meaningful mitigations at all.