A young boy being treated at Nicosia’s Makarios children’s hospital with Kawasaki disease is doing well and expected to be released in the coming days, the Paediatric Clinic’s Director Avraam Elia told CNA.
The boy, aged four-and-a-half, who has tested negative for coronavirus, is the third child to fall ill with the disease this year.
One of the other two children who were ill with the disease had tested positive for coronavirus which made his clinical state of health more serious, Elia said.
He added that about 10 children fall ill with Kawasaki disease every year in Cyprus.
The four-and-a-half-year-old has been treated at the Paediatric Clinic of Makarios Hospital for about a week after he was referred from a private hospital in Limassol due to his high fever which did not respond to antibiotics.
“Once at the clinic he presented a specific range of symptoms which are connected with an irregular form of the disease but he did not meet all the clinical criteria of the syndrome,” Elia said.
“Due to the fact that a correlation has appeared with the coronavirus and an increase of incidents of Kawasaki disease in children, the boy has been tested four times for the coronavirus and all tests were negative,” he added.
The child has responded to treatment, his fever has subsided and his clinical state of health has improved.
“He will remain in hospital under observation and is expected to be released in the coming days if his good state of health continues.”
Kawasaki disease is an illness that causes inflammation (swelling and redness) in blood vessels throughout the body.
It happens in three phases, and a lasting fever usually is the first sign. The condition most often affects kids younger than 5 years old, its cause is unknown.
In countries with large outbreaks of coronavirus, there have been more reported cases of paediatric shock and Kawasaki disease-like symptoms.
Some of these children have tested positive for COVID-19 or coronavirus antibodies.
The World Health Organization (WHO) put out a scientific brief describing “clusters of children and adolescents requiring admission to intensive care units with a multisystem inflammatory condition with some features similar to those of Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome.”
Children were displaying overlapping symptoms of severe COVID-19, toxic shock syndrome and Kawasaki disease.
