Boy sickened with COVID-19 develops new and rare complications
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ST. LOUIS (KMOV) — Pediatric specialists and researchers at Washington University are behind a major research effort led by the Nation Institutes of Health to investigate an illness common in children that develops weeks after contracting COVID-19.
According to doctors, Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, also known as MIS-C, is rare but can cause children to get seriously ill about two to six weeks after testing positive for COVID-19.
Doctors don’t know what causes it. Often kids have Covid-19 first, but not always. The novel coronavirus doesn’t usually cause severe disease in children, but for those few kids that do go on to develop MIS-C, the condition seems to inflame different parts of the body, and it can be serious.
Avery McNicholas-Silver, a 10-year-old from West County, tested positive for COVID-19 in November. His mother, Colleen McNicholas, said he had a mild case of COVID-19 and recovered. However, nearly four weeks later, she said Avery developed a high fever and stomach aches.
“The fever was the most concerning thing. We’re talking somewhere between 104 and 105 degrees for several hours,” McNicholas said. “The other thing was … pain. He was just in more and more pain. Tremendous amount of abdominal pain especially.”
Avery was admitted to St. Louis Children’s Hospital where he spent five days. Doctors tried using an antibody therapy to treat him, but McNicholas said it wasn’t effective. After treating Avery with steroids, McNicholas said they began to see improvements.
Medical researchers in St. Louis are trying to determine why a small percentage of children and young adults who test positive for COVID-19 develop a life-threatening condition that can cause severe inflammation of the heart, brain and other organs, university officials said Friday.
“It was a pretty emotional and painful experience for Avery,” McNicholas said. “He didn’t get better for the first couple of days.”
Dr. William Orr – a pediatric cardiologist and associate professor at Washington University – said doctors still don’t know what causes MIS-C and how sick children can get. Orr is one of several doctors helping lead a major research effort through a clinical trial at Washington University.
“We’ve had other kids who have required multiple days in the pediatric intensive care unit, PICU and have required additional medicine to help their heart squeeze blood pressure,” Orr said.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday it does not know if the new Covid-19 variants are causing more cases of a rare complication in children called multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
As of March 1, the Centers for Disease Control reported over 2,600 cases nationwide. Children 1 to 14 years old most commonly contract the illness. According to Orr, most kids are treated with steroids and antibody therapy and recover.
“Reassuringly so far, the vast majority of them are recovering from this,” Orr said. “With treatment and now that we understand it a little better and jump on some of the treatment and decrease that inflammatory response, we’re seeing a lot of patients recover and do great with this.”
After five days, Avery was released from the hospital. This week he was finally cleared to play sports again, but his message to other children is to take COVID-19 precautions seriously.
“It’s not fun so don’t mess around with it, Avery said. “It’s not something to play and toy around with.”
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