CDC issues health advisory about acute hepatitis in children

CNN — An investigation continues into cases of acute hepatitis with unknown causes among children who had adenovirus infections. In a health advisory Thursday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted health care providers and public health authorities to the investigation and recommended that providers consider adenovirus testing in children with hepatitis when the cause is unknown, adding that testing the blood in whole – not just blood plasma – may be more sensitive. The advisory notes that “a possible association between pediatric hepatitis and adenovirus infection is currently under investigation.” Last week, public health officials in the United States and the United Kingdom announced that they had launched an investigation into cases of severe acute hepatitis in children. “In November 2021, clinicians at a large children’s hospital in Alabama notified CDC of five pediatric patients with significant liver injury, including three with acute liver failure, who also tested positive for adenovirus. The CDC said in the advisory that “While there have been case reports of hepatitis in immunocompromised children with adenovirus type 41 infection, adenovirus type 41 is not known to be a cause of hepatitis in otherwise healthy children.” “It’s not a common presentation, not at all,” said Dr. Ashlesha Kaushik, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics.