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The local Ministry of Health reported the detection of the disease in an eight-year-old boy who remains hospitalized at the Children’s Hospital in the province of Santa Fe, in the center of the territory. It is the twentieth country to confirm a contagion of this disease of unknown origin, the first in the region. According to data from the World Health Organization, 228 have already been notified worldwide.
This Wednesday, May 5, the first case of the mysterious acute childhood hepatitis was detected in Argentina. The affected person is eight years old, a native of the city of Rosario, in the province of Santa Fe, and is admitted to the local Children’s Hospital. This was reported by the official authorities after confirmation by the national Ministry of Health in a brief statement.
In addition to being the first affected by this disease in Argentina, it is also the beginning in Latin America in the face of this complex situation that so far involves mostly children in Europe, although it has also attacked North America, the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia.
There are already 20 countries that make up the list where these cases of hepatitis have been discovered, which rise to 228 according to information provided last Tuesday by the World Health Organization, while there are another 50 under investigation.
The lack of knowledge that still surrounds the reasons or causes of this acute childhood hepatitis aggravates the tension. The data provided by the WHO show that the patients vary between one-month-old infants and 16-year-old adolescents.
Most of these have not presented any symptoms associated with the five different types of hepatitis known, indicated the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
For now, four minors have died from this strain that afflicts them with abdominal pain, diarrhea or vomiting and some even needed to receive a liver transplant.
Without certainties, the WHO is considering the possibility that it is caused by a type 41 adenovirus, detected in dozens of cases. It is a common virus that is related to common colds and stomach problems that usually presents respiratory, eye or digestive complications.
“The rising number of children affected by sudden hepatitis is unusual and worrying,” said Zania Stamataki, from the Center for Liver and Gastrointestinal Research at the University of Birmingham.
The first location of the disease was on April 5 in the United Kingdom in children under the age of ten and who did not have any previous condition. From there it was noticed in other European countries, the United States and Indonesia.
The health entity suggested to the States that they redouble their efforts to identify, investigate and report potential cases. This is to collect more information that collaborate to glimpse the source of the disease.
with EFE
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