Doctors at Cook Children鈥檚 Medical Center in Fort Worth are treating what鈥檚 considered a COVID-19-related inflammatory disease in children and adolescents.
Four patients between the ages of six and 14 who either tested positive for COVID-19 or had heavy exposure to the virus have come to Cook Children鈥檚 with a different illness: multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
fever, rash, swelling, joint pain, and in severe cases, difficulty breathing.
Dr. Nicholas Rister is a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Cook Children鈥檚. He said multisystem inflammatory syndrome is a lot like Kawasaki disease, another illness in children, that can also cause heart problems.
鈥淲e did mention the long-term side-effects of having inflammation in your body, especially around the heart, because I certainly think there鈥檚 a chance that these patients are going to have increased risks of heart disease in the future. I don鈥檛 know that for sure yet,鈥� Rister said. 鈥淲e鈥檒l have to follow them.鈥�
The World Health Organization noted in that reports from Europe and North America document clusters of children and adolescents with multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
Rister said the illness is affecting kids of all ages, and it's showing up weeks after patients are exposed to the coronavirus.
鈥淵ou have your peaks of illness as COVID comes into your area," he said. "It鈥檚 a few weeks after that that these cases start to pop up to a level that we鈥檝e noticed. So what we鈥檙e likely seeing is that COVID had entered our area, and enough lag time had progressed for this to show up."
Three of the patients treated at Cook Children's are now home, and one remains in the intensive care unit, Rister said.
