This may include adverts from us and 3 rd parties based on our understanding. The cause of the illness, multisystem inflammatory syndrome MIS-C currently has no known cause and has sent waves of children to hospital after Covid cases surged. In the US, 5200 of the 6.2 million children diagnosed with COVID - 19 have developed MIS-C. Around 80 percent of MIS-C patients are treated in intensive care units and 20 percent need a ventilation system to keep them alive. 46 children have died from the illness in the US.
While scientists are scrambling for answers, what they do know is that it is a rare but life-threatening complication of COVID - 19 where a hyperactive immune system attacks a child s body. If it is not treated quickly, a child with the illness could go into shock. Some children have gone on to develop heart rhythm abnormalities or aneurysms, where artery walls balloon out and threaten to burst. They usually appear two to six weeks after what is usually a mild or even asymptomatic infection.
But doctors are getting better at diagnosing and treating MIS-C. The mortality rate has fallen from 2.4 percent to 0.7 percent since the beginning of the pandemic. And this kind of illness does not only affect children. Adults can also develop a post-COVID - 19 inflammatory syndrome, known as MIS-A. But this is even rarer than MIS-C and has a mortality rate seven times as high as that seen in children. While it is a newly discovered illness, doctors can treat MIS-C with therapies that have been used for decades to treat a disease called Kawasaki disease.