Mexican authorities on Friday confirmed the country’s first child death from acute hepatitis of unknown origin; it is also the first known death from it in Latin America, as cases continue to rise internationally.
The three-year-old boy, from the state of Hidalgo (central), had been treated and hospitalized in the capital, where he succumbed this week, the Hidalgo’s health secretariat announced.
Three other suspected cases of the disease are being studied in the same state.
Hepatitis is not uncommon in children, but doctors have recently noticed a worrying increase in cases of very severe inflammation of the liver in – otherwise healthy – children under the age of five.
Globally, the death toll has now reached seven.
The causes of the disease remain unknown. Cases are not attributed to the most common forms of hepatitis (A, B, C, D and E), are not considered autoimmune, nor are they due to some form of poisoning. Scientists speculate that “adenovirus 41 plays a role,” a U.S. health official said yesterday. are on the list of possible causes as, the vast majority of them, children who developed hepatitis internationally were not vaccinated – they were too young to be vaccinated.
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