Hancock ‘very worried’ as young children die from new Covid-19 illness

The Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Tuesday that he is “very worried” over the new condition which is similar to Kawasaki disease and linked to coronavirus.

Kawasaki disease is a rare illness that is triggered in children, mainly under the age of five. The early signs of the illness are triggered by the impact of auto immune response to the deadly virus.

Hancock told LBC Radio’s Nick Ferrari that Kawasaki disease is associated with skin rashes, fever, swelling of the glands and in the most severe cases, children can experience inflammation of arteries of the heart.

He said that young children are dying from the disease which has been linked to coronavirus, and has called on more information from the NHS.

The Health Secretary said, “I am very worried about the early signs that in rare cases there is an impact of an auto-immune response in children that causes significant disease.

“We put out at the weekend a call across the NHS because some cases of this had been identified.

“This call says to doctors in other parts of the country ‘have you seen this condition?’

“Then they collate the information and find out what is going on.”

Hancock told LBC that there have been children who caught the infection, have died who had no underlying health conditions.

He said, “There are some children who have died who didn’t have underlying health conditions.

“It’s a new disease that we think may be caused by coronavirus and the COVID-19 virus. We’re not 100% sure, because some of the people who got it hadn’t tested positive, so we’re doing a lot of research now, but it is something that we’re worried about.

“It is rare, although it is very significant for those children who do get it, the number of cases is small.”

Doctors are seeing a growing number of children with new symptoms with abdominal pain, diarrhoea, cardiac inflammation, and gastrointestinal symptoms including vomiting.

The mysterious symptoms children are showing has been compared by doctors to toxic shock and Kawasaki disease, which cause fever, breathing problems and internal swelling, when they’re combined.

GPs were sent an alert telling them to refer children with symptoms including stomach pains.

Symptoms to look out for are those who have redness of the tongue or rashes.