36 Additional Children Confirmed with Unknown Hepatitis

The U.S. CDC has been investigating the cause of an unusually high number of acute hepatitis cases in children since October 2021. As of May 27, 2022, there is no known association with travel, COVID-19, or hepatitis viruses (A to E) in these children.

The CDC recently confirmed the number of Persons Under Investigation (PUI) has reached (216) in (38) states or territories.

This is an increase of about (36) in just a week.

'While this may appear to be a large increase in patients under investigation, it's important to understand that the vast majority of these are what we consider 'retrospective' patients,' said the CDC on May 18, 2022.

'Most of these cases involve children (average age 3) that are just now being reported, rather than new cases of hepatitis – so not all are recent, and some may ultimately wind up not being linked to this current investigation.'

'Additionally, there have been no reported deaths since February 2022, and the proportion of patients requiring liver transplants has gone down to around 9% since May 5.'

'The likelihood of children developing hepatitis remains extremely low.'

Over 665 children have been impacted globally, with numerous liver transplants and related fatalities.

In the United Kingdom (U.K.), the four nations are conducting a joint investigation.

Public Health Scotland recently confirmed 26 cases of sudden onset liver inflammation in children.

Overall, the U.K. has confirmed 222 cases as of May 27, 2022. 

Amongst these children, (68%) had adenovirus detected, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus was detected in 15%.

Of the confirmed cases, 11 required liver transplantation.

On May 19, 2022, the U.K. published Technical Briefing #3: Investigation into acute hepatitis of unknown etiology in children in England.

'The leading hypotheses remain those which involve adenovirus; however, we continue to investigate the potential role of SARS-CoV-2 and to work on ruling out any toxicological component,' stated the U.K. research team.

Additional breaking news focused on children confirmed with unknown acute hepatitis is posted at this PrecisionVaccinations.com/Acute.

Notes: These data were posted on May 25, 2022, reflecting data from October 1, 2021. Reported PUIs are preliminary and subject to change as more data become available.

These children are generally less than ten years of age (ave 3 yrs.)with elevated aspartate aminotransferase or alanine aminotransferase (>500 U/L) and have an unknown etiology for their hepatitis since October 1, 2021.

This information was manually curated for mobile readers.

Updated at 8:30 am CT.