Rebecca says her son’s infection progressed quickly. British experts seem to have discovered the reason why many young children around the world have suddenly developed unexplained liver problems. According to the study they conducted, two common hepatitis viruses that were almost unnoticed during the Covid-19 pandemic “returned” after the strict restrictive measures imposed in most countries were lifted. These viruses began to spread actively in children’s institutions, taking advantage of weakened immunity during the period of isolation. Hepatitis has already affected more than 1,000 children from 35 countries, many of them under the age of five. In some cases, the infection was so severe that the only way to save the child was to transplant a damaged organ. In one case in the United Kingdom, 12 liver transplants have been performed.
Two groups of researchers from London and Glasgow concluded that many children who had little or no contact with their peers for two years because of coronavirus restrictions later had two infections for which immunity is usually developed in infancy.
– Adenovirus, which causes the common cold and upset stomach;
– Adeno-associated virus serotype 2 (AAV2), which usually does not cause disease on its own because it replicates in cells only when infected with a “helper” adenovirus. Scientists say this may explain why some children have developed rare liver complications.
Noah is one of a dozen British children in urgent need of liver transplants in recent months. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what will happen next. Episodes The End of History Podcast Advertising One of the children whose sudden development of hepatitis led to the need for a liver transplant is three-year-old Noah, whose family lives in Essex County in southeastern England. According to his mother, Rebecca Cameron-Mackintosh, she was completely devastated by the child’s illness. “Nothing bad had ever happened to him before,” she recalls. “Everything happened so suddenly, and the infection developed so quickly, that we didn’t even have a chance to react.” “At first, we thought it was a small problem that would be easy to solve – but the problem kept growing and growing, like a snowball. Rebecca had planned to donate part of her liver to a child, but her body reacted so strongly to the medications prescribed to prepare the donor organ for transplant that she ended up in the intensive care unit herself. Noa was then placed on the waiting list for a transplant. Fortunately, the wait was not long and the child soon received a new liver transplant. The boy’s recovery is going well, but because of the surgery, he will need to take immunosuppressants for the rest of his life – otherwise his body will reject the foreign organ.
Rebecca says her son is now doomed to be on medication for the rest of his life. “There is a heartbreaking irony here,” Rebecca says. “You seem to be doing everything right: carefully following the necessary restrictions to avoid endangering people with weakened immune systems – yet somehow, by some terrible twist of fate, your own child ends up with a weakened immune system for life. And the only reason for this is because you followed the instructions of the authorities”. However, such cases are very rare. Most children who contract these types of viruses recover quickly, even with forced delays. It is not clear why adenovirus infection leads to liver inflammation in some people – genetics may play a role. At the same time, scientists completely rule out any link between the development of hepatitis and the coronavirus itself or vaccines against it. “During the entire quarantine period, while the children were at home and communicating with each other only virtually, virus transmission between them was simply impossible,” explains one of the study’s authors, Judith Breyer, Professor of Virology at University College London.
“As a result, they could not develop immunity to many common infections that we normally encounter in early childhood.” “When the restrictions were lifted, children started communicating with each other again, and viruses began to spread freely from one child to another. This, combined with the lack of pre-existing immunity, led to a whole wave of new infections,” he concludes. Doctors believe that the number of similar cases should now decrease, but they do not rule out the possibility that late-developing immunity may still manifest itself in the future. Professor Emma Thomson, who led a team of researchers from the University of Glasgow, says: “Larger studies are urgently needed to investigate the role of AAV2 in the development of hepatitis in children. “It is also necessary to learn as much as possible about the seasonal circulation of AAV2 – currently no one is constantly monitoring this virus. It is possible that the seasonal peak of adenoviral infection coincides with the peak of AAV2 circulation, leading to unusual manifestations of hepatitis in susceptible young children,” suggests the expert.