A growing number of children are showing up at New York hospitals with troubling new symptoms that state health officials believe could be linked to coronavirus.
The patients, ages 2 to 15 years, were hospitalized from April 17 to May 1, according to the alert.
Several tested positive for Covid-19 or had positive antibody tests.
Some of the children had persistent fever, toxic shock syndrome and features similar to Kawasaki disease, the state health advisory said.
Kawasaki disease causes inflammation in the walls of the arteries and can limit blood flow to the heart. While it’s usually treatable and most children recover without serious problems, it can also be deadly. It mainly affects children under age 5.
Symptoms include a high temperature lasting over five days along with a rash, swollen neck glands, dry cracked lips, swelling of the hands and feet, and redness in both eyes.
While older adults are mostly at risk for severe coronavirus, children can also get infected, health officials said.
A team at Stanford Children’s Hospital in California has reported a case with similar features.
In the UK, pediatric specialists recently warned that a small number of children was becoming ill with the rare syndrome that could be linked to coronavirus. Experts there said abdominal pain, gastrointestinal symptoms and cardiac inflammation are common in those cases.
Similar cases have also been reported in Italy and Spain.