Paediatricians alerted about 'very inflammatory' syndrome in some children with Covid-19

Consultant Paediatrician and Infectious Diseases Specialist at Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Professor Karina Butler has said that paediatricians have been warned about a syndrome that developed in some children who had contracted Covid-19.

Prof Butler told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that “by and large” there have been very few cases of Covid-19 in children in Ireland.

“The vast majority of the cases we've seen have been very mild, almost to the point of being incidental pickups, but we do know that that is not always the case and there are children who can become critically ill with this virus.

“We became aware of, at the weekend, of an alert issued from the UK, from London where they are noticing presentations of a very inflammatory state in rare children, where they have high fever, red eyes, predominant gastrointestinal type symptoms, abdominal pain.

“That is very like another syndrome we're familiar with in paediatrics called Kawasaki syndrome or like what we call toxic shock syndrome and we have alerted all paediatricians to be on the lookout for that.

“Because some of those have developed in children who happen to have Covid. Whether Covid is the cause or not we don't know yet, but the syndrome has been recognised in children who have that virus,” she said.

Returning to normal life after the Covid-19 emergency will be a crawl due to the complexity of the virus, Prof Butler warned.

She said we must be sure that everything is in place to deal with potential outbreaks of Covid-19 when restrictions are eased.

We need all of the things to be in place so we can safely crawl back to normality. I think it will be a crawl

Prof Butler told RTE Morning Ireland that changes to the testing criteria will give a better idea of how common the virus is in the community.

“We’re in a lot better place than we might have been if decisive steps hadn’t been taken.”

Prof Butler said the safe return to normality will be “a crawl”, warning the virus is “unique and stealthy”.

She said it has been two months since we first encountered the virus and there are now almost 20,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths.

Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer for Department of Health (Steve Humphreys/PA)

“We need all of the things to be in place so we can safely crawl back to normality. I think it will be a crawl.”

The criteria for Covid-19 testing are being broadened from Tuesday morning to include more suspected cases of the virus.

People with either a recent cough, fever or shortness of breath can now get access to a test.

She said increasing the criteria for testing will “give us an overall idea of how prevalent the virus is in the community”.

The Irish College of General Practitioners said the increase in testing is welcome.

“As we approach next week where there is a hope the lockdown scenario will be eased, we have to do a lot more testing and tracing to make sure that the country stays on top of Covid-19 and this pandemic can come to an end.”

An announcement on the whether or not restrictions will be lifted or eased is expected after a special Cabinet meeting on Friday.

Additional reporting by PA