What to Know About Kawasaki Disease, the Pediatric Inflammatory Condition Possibly Linked to COVID-19

Six weeks ago, in the relatively early days of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak, Dr. Veena Goel Jones, a pediatric hospitalist with Palo Alto Medical Foundation in California, treated a six-month-old baby girl for what she calls “classic Kawasaki disease.” The infant had fever, rash and swelling characteristic of the pediatric inflammatory condition. Jones, who is also an adjunct clinical assistant professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, and her team also tested the girl for COVID-19, mainly out of hospital protocol—”not necessarily because we felt very strongly like she must have the virus,” Jones says. But the girl did test positive for COVID-19, despite never developing a cough and having only minor congestion. Struck by the possible combination of COVID-19 and Kawasaki, Jones and her colleagues published a case report in Hospital Pediatrics last month. Now, their clinical experience seems even more noteworthy. Similar reports have since come out of the U.K., Italy, Spain and New York City. Fifteen children between the ages of two and 15 were treated for Kawasaki-like inflammatory symptoms in New York City hospitals between April 17 and May 1, according to a recent announcement from the New York City Department of Health. Four tested positive for COVID-19, while six tested negative but had antibodies in their blood that suggested they had recovered from coronavirus. All of the children survived, but half required blood-pressure support and fi...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news