News about the cases of acute hepatitis in children. A new study reveals a double explanation: Children who, after passing COVID, maintain viral reservoirs in the body. If these minors are later infected with an adenovirus, they could develop cases of severe acute hepatitis.
This is the hypothesis maintained by Petter Brodin, Professor of Pediatric Immunology at Imperial College London. In his study he has come to the conclusion that the Childhood hepatitis can be a consequence of adenovirus infection in children who have been infected with COVID.
According to the study, the persistence of the virus in the intestine “can lead to the release of viral proteins, which leads to immune activation.” For the researchers, this could be the cause of “multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.” Or what is the same, a exaggerated inflammation in the body in the presence of an adenovirus. That could be the step prior to the hepatitis aguda. It so happens that the majority of children diagnosed with acute hepatitis of unknown origin have this syndrome.
The researchers refer to other studies linking the origin of adenovirus f41 as the possible cause of severe childhood hepatitisthough not fully proven.
According to the article, published in the medical journal ‘The Lancet’, the scientists suggest investigating the persistence of SARS-Co V-2 in feces, T-cell receptor diversion, and upregulation of immune interferon in children with acute hepatitis. “If there is evidence of immune activation by superantigens” “immunomodulatory therapies” could work as a treatment.
Worldwide, more than 426 cases of children infected with hepatitis of unknown origin. In Spain there is already at least 26 cases.
–
