Less than a week after the World Health Organization (WHO) alert of cases of acute hepatitis of unknown origin in dozens of children in the United Kingdom but also in Spain, other countries Europeans are now affected by this disease.
Thus, according to the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC), “additional cases in children have been reported in Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain”.
Nine suspected cases have also been identified in children aged 1 to 6 in Alabama in the United States, reports the ECDC.
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“Investigations are continuing in all countries reporting cases.
Currently, the exact cause of hepatitis remains unknown,” writes the ECDC, but British investigators “consider an infectious cause to be the most likely due to the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of the cases.”
On Friday, the WHO said it expected new reports in the coming days and had already reported "less than five" cases in Ireland and three in Spain.
No deaths recorded
Contacted by AFP, the ECDC was unable to give the number of cases by country.
No deaths have been recorded but some British cases have required liver transplantation.
"Laboratory investigations of the cases excluded viral hepatitis types A, B, C, D and E in all cases," according to the ECDC.
The United Kingdom initially reported 10 cases of severe hepatitis in Scotland to the WHO on April 5, before reporting a total of 74 three days later, according to the UN organization.
Among the UK cases, "many cases showed signs of jaundice".
According to the ECDC, "Some of the cases were reporting gastrointestinal symptoms, including abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting in the previous weeks."