Baelyn showed the first symptoms of the acute hepatitis of unknown cause Last Friday April 22nd when red welts appeared all over the body. Since then, the just-two-year-old minor has been part of an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention United States of America (CDC) to analyze the impact of the disease.
The little girl’s mother initially believed it could be a combination of allergies and, speaking to CNN, pointed out that “she’s had a runny nose since the beginning of time.”
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Believing it was temporary, they went to the hospital to get a dose of adrenaline, which is commonly used to treat allergic reactions. However, the ordeal had only just begun. The next morning, Baelyn began showing a yellow tint in their eyesso she was taken back to the hospital where a blood sample was taken.
“You have to go to Minneapolis now. This is the only way they can save her from this hepatitis. We don’t have time to wait,” their doctor told them after seeing the results from the lab. The family was transferred by helicopter with the help of the asylum.
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Kelsea, Baelyn’s mother, says that the night before she spoke to her mother, a lab technician, about the mysterious cases of hepatitis that were spreading around the world, never imagining that her own daughter would be one of the victims. the disease.
The minor’s health deteriorated overwhelmingly within a week and reached a Ammonia levels in the blood from 109, when that of a normal person is 25 to 40, as suggested by Dr. Srinath Chinnakotla determined. At such high levels, “the kidneys shut down and the patient goes into a coma,” he explained.
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“Seeing her slowly deteriorate like this, as did her muscles, she started shaking and found it difficult to sit up straight and couldn’t hold her head up just watching her go through it , was like, “That’s not my daughter, is it? Am I going to get her back?” Kelsea wondered.
The only way to save the minor’s life was a liver transplant, for which as a girl she was the top priority on the waiting list. Three days later, an offer for a liver came from a 16-year-old from Texas.
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The operation to perform the transplant lasted more than 36 hours, after which most of the symptoms disappeared. However, Baelyn won’t be fully out of the woods for another year and will need to stay in the hospital for at least two more months.
Characteristics of acute hepatitis in childhood:
Common hepatitis has inflammatory properties and affects the liver. Although the cause can be very diverse, infectious (viral or bacterial), immunological (autoimmune hepatitis), or toxic (alcohol, toxic substances, or drugs) causes are emphasized.
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However, the children who have presented the disease symptoms They don’t have the virus that’s usually associated with these ailments, or at least it hasn’t been discovered. On the other hand, an immunological or toxic origin was also ruled out, since the minors were healthy one week before the onset of the first symptoms.
Symptoms of acute childhood hepatitis of unknown cause include abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and mucous membranes), itching, dark urine, and poorly pigmented stools.
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That WHO He also reported that one in ten patients with the disease required a liver transplant.