Nursery World - Co-infection of common viruses likely cause of rise in childhood hepatitis

Health experts in the UK believe they have identified the cause behind a surge in childhood hepatitis across the world.

Scientists believe waning immunity among children to common viruses may be behind the spike in liver disease PHOTO Adobe Stock

Researchers believe that co-infection with two viruses – AAV2 and an adenovirus, and in some children, the herpes virus HHV6 - could be behind more than a thousand cases of sudden onset of liver disease in young children across 35 countries since last April.

Of those children in the UK who developed hepatitis, nearly 40 per cent were admitted to hospital, while a total of 12 needed a lifesaving liver transplant.

Teams from MRC-University of Glasgow’s Centre for Virus Research (CVR) and the Royal Hospital for children in Glasgow, Great Ormond Street Hospital and the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, who investigated the cause behind the cases, think that a period of lockdown may have contributed to a peak in adenovirus infections in the general public and meant children have lower immunity to certain viruses.

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