Cases of unexplained hepatitis in children: the long covid in question?

A team of Israeli researchers from Schneider Children’s Medical Center, Rabin Medical Center – Beilinson Hospital, Rambam Medical Center and Tel Aviv University believe that long Covid may be the cause of unexplained acute hepatitis that has occurred in children for several years. weeks. The study was published on June 10 in the journal Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition.

Twelve cases in the country, five studied

This study involves 5 of 12 pediatric patients listed in Israel. All were hospitalized at Schneider Children’s Medical Center last year due to liver damage. The children had also tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 before the onset of liver symptoms.

The five patients are two three- and five-month-old infants, two eight-year-olds and one 13-year-old. The two infants were victims of acute liver failure requiring transplantation, while the three children had acute hepatitis with cholesteasis, a decrease in bile flow.

Last point to complete this clinical picture: the forms of Covid-19 developed by the children were either asymptomatic or mild.

Dr Gérald Kierzek, emergency physician and medical director of Doctissimo, calls for caution: “The correlation link does not mean that there is a causal link. We cannot formally affirm, from only five cases, that the Covid is in question. This is a retrospective study, so we have to be careful.”.

Two possible paths of understanding

For the authors of this work, two explanations are possible. “The most likely causes of acute hepatitis are either a post-infection immune reaction, such as multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or an abnormal immune response to the new coronavirus that would have favored the creation of a viral reservoir in the digestive system. -they.

A total of around 700 cases have been reported in 34 countries. Among them, at least 38 children required liver transplants and ten died.