Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

An in­creas­ing num­ber of chil­dren are de­vel­op­ing neu­ro­log­i­cal com­pli­ca­tions af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed with COVID-19.

The rev­e­la­tion came from the head of the Pae­di­atric Emer­gency De­part­ment at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Dr Joanne Paul, at Wednes­day's Min­istry of Health vir­tu­al me­dia brief­ing.

This trend, she said, is in con­junc­tion with Mul­ti-Sys­tem In­flam­ma­to­ry Syn­drome in Chil­dren (MIS-C).

“We’re not on­ly see­ing MIS-C com­ing up but we have now the post-COVID brain in­flam­ma­tion or en­cephali­tis,” she said.

“With COVID, it can have re­cep­tors that at­tack the brain and heart and the GI (gas­troin­testi­nal) and oth­er places.”

Since the pan­dem­ic be­gan, she said there were 342 chil­dren hos­pi­talised, of which five are cur­rent­ly ward­ed. Their ages are one month, two months, 2, 8, 12.

To date, there have been 12 chil­dren to die from COVD-19.

She in­di­cat­ed that there have been 76 chil­dren di­ag­nosed with MIS-C to date. This, she said, is among the high­est in the re­gion.

She said no deaths were record­ed as yet from the con­di­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Dr Paul, many chil­dren who de­vel­oped the con­di­tion did so de­spite hav­ing asymp­to­matic COVID-19.

“The thing is that they have no symp­toms and af­ter­wards they present with MIS-C. So you re­al­ly have to be watch­ing out for the MIS-C signs and al­so signs of en­cephali­tis,” she said.

Paul, how­ev­er, not­ed that lo­cal da­ta in­di­cates that chil­dren who qual­i­fy for vac­ci­na­tion and have done so don’t de­vel­op any of these com­pli­ca­tions fol­low­ing their in­fec­tion.

“So far, since Au­gust last year, since we start­ed to have vac­ci­na­tions for that age group (12-18), none, ze­ro, none of those pa­tients have de­vel­oped MIS-C at all. And it’s a sim­i­lar trend with re­gards to the post-COVID en­cephali­tis,” she said.

She said there was on­ly one child be­tween 12 and 18 years old to de­vel­op MIS-C since Au­gust 2020. This per­son, she said, was un­vac­ci­nat­ed.

She not­ed chil­dren are most like­ly to be hos­pi­talised if they suf­fer from chron­ic med­ical con­di­tions such as sick­le cell dis­ease, di­a­betes, obe­si­ty, kid­ney dis­ease, thy­roid is­sues and chron­ic thy­roid is­sues.

What is MIS-C

Mul­ti­sys­tem in­flam­ma­to­ry syn­drome in chil­dren (MIS-C) is a con­di­tion where dif­fer­ent body parts can be­come in­flamed, in­clud­ing the heart, lungs, kid­neys, brain, skin, eyes, or gas­troin­testi­nal or­gans. Its symp­toms in­clude stom­ach pain.

blood­shot eyes, di­ar­rhoea, dizzi­ness or light-head­ed­ness (signs of low blood pres­sure), skin rash, and vom­it­ing.

What is En­cephali­tis

En­cephali­tis is in­flam­ma­tion of the ac­tive tis­sues of the brain caused by an in­fec­tion or an au­toim­mune re­sponse. The in­flam­ma­tion caus­es the brain to swell, which can lead to headache, stiff neck, sen­si­tiv­i­ty to light, men­tal con­fu­sion and seizures.