Early detection of MIS-C is difficult
treatment for their children by which time the illness has advanced .
It ’ s not yet known what the risk factors are for MIS-C , although researchers do know that many children with MIS-C had the virus that causes COVID-19 or had been around someone with it . Since so little is known about it , MIS-C is considered a syndrome , or a group of signs and symptoms , not a disease . Identifying and studying more children who have MIS-C may help to eventually find a cause .
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , which named the new syndrome , has set out diagnostic criteria that patients need to fulfil to confirm it , although they are quite broad .
MIS-C can be diagnosed in individuals under 21 with fever , laboratory evidence of inflammation , and evidence of clinically severe illness requiring hospitalisation with multi-system organ involvement . For a firm diagnosis , there must be no alternative plausible diagnoses , and the patient must be positive for current or recent SARS-CoV-2 infection by PCR ( viruses ), serology ( blood ), or antigen ( foreign bodies ) tests or have had COVID-19 exposure within four weeks prior to the onset of symptoms .
The CDC also notes that fever should be at least 38 degrees for a minimum of 24 hours . Some children suffer a rapid heartbeat and may develop cardiac and / or respiratory arrest .
Because its symptoms are so similar to another inflammatory condition that affects children , Kawasaki disease , researchers in the early days of the pandemic initially thought that the two were linked , although the new syndrome appears to be more virulent than Kawasaki .
“ The landscape has changed since then , so that MIS-C is now being termed a distinct condition . It affects multiple organs and has a pronounced cardiovascular complication , so a lot of children are developing severe myocarditis and a small fraction are developing coronary artery abnormalities , which are common features with Kawasaki disease . These are important overlaps ,” said Dr Angus Stock , a viral immunologist at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne who researches Kawasaki disease .
The main differences between the two conditions are that in MIS-C we see a more rapid and serious advancement of symptoms , especially fever and organ complications such as cardiac and respiratory
GlobalHealthAsiaPacific . com JUNE 2021
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