Acute hepatitis cases in children reported in Andalucia for first time following mysterious World outbreak

Acute hepatitis cases in children have been reported in Andalucia for the first time following the mysterious outbreak in cases seen across the World.

A report by the Health Alerts and Emergencies Coordination Centre (Centro de Coordinación de Alertas y Emergencias Sanitarias), which reports to the Ministry of Health, has detected two unconnected cases of acute hepatitis in Andalucia in people aged 0-16 years. The health authorities add that “according to the information received so far, we have not observed an increase in the number of cases of acute failure or severe acute hepatitis expected in paediatric age in Spain”, as reported by 20minutos

On Saturday, 23, April, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that there had been at least 196 reported cases of children contracting acute hepatitis in 12 different countries including the UK, Spain, Denmark, Italy and France. The UK has seen the majority of cases with 114 reported instances as of 21 April. According to the WHO, there has been one fatality linked to this mysterious outbreak in young children, but they have not yet reported the age or nationality of the child. The reported cases range from patients that are as young as one-month-old to teenagers, at 16 years of age, with 17 patients needing liver transplants following the disease.