ATLANTA — Georgia health leaders are responding to a mysterious hepatitis outbreak that’s now affecting children in the state. Most children who get it have to go to the hospital.
“They were previously healthy children,” state epidemiologist Cherie Drenzek said during a Georgia Department of Health meeting Tuesday.
That’s what has state health leaders so confused about the hepatitis outbreak.
Drenzek said there have been several cases in Georgia and, just like the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention, they are trying to find the link between the kids.
“A number of potential exposures, previous infections, other potential co-factors: toxins, medications, animal exposures, you name it,” Drenzek said. “We’re just speaking as detectives really here in a way.”
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Parents are looking for answers, too, as their children suffer.
“She had had shooting pains in her upper abdomen area to the point where she was in tears. And after lots of tests and an ultrasound and all of that, that’s when we found out that she had hepatitis,” parent Jillian King said.
Of the 109 children who have gotten hepatitis, half of them had an “adenovirus,” but doctors say that still doesn’t explain what’s going on.
“Normally does not cause hepatitis, certainly not of this severity,” Drenzek said.
They said maybe, it’s a factor combined with something else.
“During the context of COVID, were these children just not exposed to typical adenovirus, so they just reacted to it in a different way,” Drenzek said.
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But officials aren’t sure. They are asking parents to watch out until they have those answers.
“I suppose my frustration is just the fear of the unknown as far as other families are concerned and hoping that no one else. You know, gets it and has to go through a worse time,” King said.
It’s important to remember that this hepatitis is still very rare. There have been 109 cases in children across the country. That’s out of about 74 million children.
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