Mystery Liver Disease Affects Children Globally: These Are The Symptoms
NDTV
Health authorities are trying to determine the source of the liver-inflaming disease that's afflicted at least 169 children as of April 21.
One child has died and more than a dozen have undergone liver transplants as a result of a mysterious outbreak of severe acute hepatitis that's sickened children in the U.K., the U.S. and 10 other countries, the World Health Organization said.
Health authorities are trying to determine the source of the liver-inflaming disease that's afflicted at least 169 children, ages 1 month to 16 years, as of April 21, the WHO said in a statement Saturday. Typical causes of viral hepatitis have been excluded.
The United Nations agency was notified on April 5 of 10 cases among previously healthy children across central Scotland with jaundice, diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Three days later, 74 cases had been identified in the U.K.
As of April 21, the U.K. had 114 cases followed by 13 in Spain, 12 in Israel, nine in the U.S. and 21 more scattered among Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, France, Romania and Belgium. Many were infected with a strain of adenovirus, a family of viruses that cause a range of illnesses including the common cold.
