DThe latest alert, pediatricians are wondering about cases of children, some tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, presenting “multi-systemic” inflammatory states evoking an atypical form of Kawasaki disease.
This disease, first described in 1967 in Japan, mainly affects young children. Its origin is not precisely known and could mix infectious, genetic and immune factors.
However, the link with the new coronavirus is not established at this stage.
Before these new questions, COVID-19 was known in severe cases to cause severe acute respiratory syndromes (SARS, SARS in English) and to attack mainly the elderly and adults with risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, overweight, heart or respiratory failure.
Week after week, the caregivers discover the peculiarities and complications linked to this new disease for humans as much as for medicine.
COVID-19 “can attack almost everything in the body with disastrous consequences” says the American specialized magazine Science the Dr Harlan Krumholz, from Yale University.
This cardiologist in charge of collecting clinical data on the disease in the United States, adds: “his ferocity is impressive and invites humility”.
“Cytokine storms”
In its severe forms, clinicians have realized that the disease can lead to a runaway immune response, with its now famous “cytokine storms” which can lead to death.
Described for only about twenty years, this phenomenon has been observed for other coronaviruses (SARS in 2003, MERS in 2012) and is suspected to explain the carnage of the “Spanish flu” in 1918-19 with nearly 50 million dead.
Part of the therapeutic research applies precisely to trying to appease this immune over-reaction, as is the case for the promising trial of an immuno-modulating drug, tocilizumab, conducted in France.
Neurological damage
Loss of smell and, to a lesser extent, taste has become one of the most reliable and distinctive markers of the disease.
At the same time, clinical observations point to possible neurological damage linked to the coronavirus for certain serious cases.
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