US health officials reported that they are investigating 109 cases of severe jaundice (hepatitis) in children of unknown origin, 5 of which resulted in death. The warning bulletin, which calls on doctors across the country to be wary of cases of liver disease, has also been updated.
Assistant director of the infectious diseases division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Jay Butler, in a statement via the phone conference method, stated that the cases were detected in 25 states and territories in the last 7 months.
It was reported that 14 of the children needed liver transplantation.
Of the 109 children diagnosed with jaundice, around half are also infected with the common flu-causing adenovirus, Butler noted, but the agency is still investigating the exact cause of the illness.
Jay Butler said that this type of adenovirus-associated jaundice occurs almost entirely in immunocompromised children, but that most of the cases first reported to the CDC did not have immunodeficiency conditions.
Butler stated that the vast majority of children with cases do not meet the criteria for being vaccinated with COVID-19, but this situation “seems unrelated to the cases”.
The CDC is also examining whether COVID infection or contact with other pathogens, drugs and animals play a role.
In the USA and Europe, the mysterious increase in cases of jaundice, which causes liver inflammation among children, alarmed the authorities, which prompted health officials around the world to investigate the reasons for this increase.
The World Health Organization announced this week that it had received reports of at least 228 possible cases from over 20 countries, with an additional 50 cases under investigation.