Cases of mystery hepatitis in young children linked to lockdowns are expected to rise, experts believe.
The UK Health Security announced cases of the sudden liver inflammation among the children has risen to 114 and of these 10 have received a liver transplant.
Most children are aged under five and their condition started with sickness and diarrhoea followed by jaundice.
Experts suspect a virus and have not ruled out Covid-19.
However the prime suspect is a family of common viruses called adenoviruses that usually cause a range of mild illnesses including colds, vomiting and diarrhoea. Most people recover without complications.
UKHSA suspects that children’s weakened immune systems following repeat lockdowns and social distancing could be a factor.
Prof Deirdre Kelly is one of the UK’s leading experts in paediatric hepatology based at the liver unit at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
She said such common viruses would only normally cause hepatitis liver damage in immunocompromised children.
“We are already seeing cases to rise now an issue has been raised and clinicians have been asked to be alert to possible cases,” she said.
“We still need to see evidence of a relationship with previous Covid infection, and whether the affected children are genetically or immunologically different from others especially in relation to the adenovirus which may be a trigger rather than the causative factor.
“We need to know what the explanted livers at transplant showed.”
The World Health Organisation said at the weekend a child had died from the condition. Cases had been detected across Europe and in the US, and now increasingly in China and Japan.
To date 190 cases of the “hepatitis of unknown origin” have been reported, 140 of them in Europe.
The cases have appeared in previously healthy children and some have led to acute liver failure.
In just over half the cases the children have recovered.
Hepatitis symptoms include dark urine, grey-coloured poo, itchy skin, jaundice, high temperature, vomiting, loss of appetite, muscle and joint pain.
However until recently children were only coming to the attention of specialists if they turned yellow with suspected jaundice.
Hepatitis is usually caused by viruses hepatitis A to E but in these cases the children were found not to have had any so the cause is still unknown.
Dr Meera Chand, head of UKHSA, said they suspect cases are triggered by adenoviruses but with a lockdown induced “susceptibility factor”.
She said: “Co-factors include a lack of prior exposure of that particular age group during the formative stages they’ve gone through during the pandemic.”
