Covid Virus Linked Syndrome Is Getting Worse Among Children
Getting vaccinated is getting ever more important.
Cases of a Covid-19 related syndrome is growing among children and getting worse. According to the New York Times instances of what is called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C are increasing.
This is every parent’s nightmare. And such reports could not come at a worse time as governments around the world are trying to reopen schools. Children everywhere are suffering from many psychological problems due to being forced to stay at home all of the time due to the Coronavirus. This has caused them stress and deprived children of their much need social interaction with other kids.
Parents who work also need their children to get back to school so they can leave the house themselves.
The CDC defines Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children as a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. Children with MIS-C may have a fever and various symptoms, including abdominal (gut) pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, or feeling extra tired. We do not yet know what causes MIS-C. However, many children with MIS-C had the virus that causes COVID-19, or had been around someone with COVID-19.
While children and adolescents have been less likely than adults to be infected with, or to have severe illness from, COVID-19, and may have asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic COVID-19, this might be changing. As the outbreak has progressed, reports the CDC, larger numbers of children and adolescents are getting infected. It’s unknown whether this increase in COVID-19 cases among children and adolescents will also increase cases of MIS-C. CDC and state partners will be monitoring for additional cases and will adapt MIS-C recommendations as needed.
“We’re now getting more of these MIS-C kids, but this time, it just seems that a higher percentage of them are really critically ill,” said Dr. Roberta DeBiasi, chief of infectious diseases at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that there have been 2,060 cases in 48 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. These include 30 deaths. The median age of sufferers was just 9 years old, but even infants and people as old as 20 have been stricken. But this data only covers a period ending last October and since then the rate of such cases has increased.
Doctors have yet uncovered the cause for this spike in new cases. But they do not think that it is related to the recently uncovered more contagious Covid strains.
What is known right now, however, is that getting vaccinated for the Coronavirus will help stop the spread of MIS-C. Even if children will be the last demographic group to get vaccinated, the more that people everywhere get the vaccine the lower the risk of transmission will be.
Read more about: Coronavirus, COVID-19, MIS-C, Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children
