At the time when parents are in a fix whether to send children to schools for offline classes, doctors in Mumbai have said that the Omicron variant induced third wave was rather mild amongst the younger population. Though children exhibited stronger symptoms as compared to the previous waves with high fever, cough, cold etc, a majority recovered with home treatment.
Doctors have now warned there will be a surge in the surge of Multiinflamatory Syndrome (MIS-C) among the children in the city in the coming days. Though doctors have been treating two to three patients weekly but they believe it will increase as the gastrointestinal system has a major role in MISC pathogenesis and they need to observe them over the next one month for any occurrence of MIS-C in clusters. A senior paediatrician from the civic health department said, till now, they have successfully treated MIS-C cases. But as the cases rise, it is suspected that MIS-C cases can also spike. “Parents shouldn’t ignore symptoms like prolonged high fever, red eyes, swelling in the neck, rashes on the body, abdominal pain, loose motions, low blood pressure, fatigue, vomiting, and diarrhoea.
These symptoms overlap with various other conditions, so a high index of suspicion for MIS-C is important. The patients therefore, should also be examined regarding the history of Covid-19,” he said. Director, pediatrics, Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, Dr Fazal Nabi said, the biggest concern for pediatric Covid care is the possibility of post-Covid complications like multi-system inflammatory syndrome or MISC.
It is a condition where vital organs of the body, including the brain, lungs, heart, eyes, and skin get inflamed. While the exact cause of MIS-C is unknown, the symptoms typically occur in children, who had contracted Covid in the past or were exposed to someone with Covid. “We had a few cases of MIS-C syndrome after the first and second wave, and now in the third wave we have a very mild form of cases and expect to have a milder or no post Covid manifestation. Therefore, we may not come across any cases of MIS-C syndrome. MIS-C syndrome is a post-infection immune mediated disease. We should change our mindset as per the changing protocols,” he said. “For fever more than four days, we should not jump into diagnosis unnecessarily and scare the patients. We should follow the definitive guidelines as advised by the IAP for the diagnosis of MIS-C syndrome. After the diagnosis, we have an excellent treatment and the patient recovers completely,” concluded Dr Nabi.
A doctor from a private hospital said, so far they haven’t noticed any surge of MIS-C among children in the city. During the earlier waves, there was a lag of 4-6 weeks between the peak incidence of Covid infections and the appearance of MIS-C cases. Secondly, in this wave, gastrointestinal symptoms like vomiting and loose motions were seen in fewer children as compared to earlier waves.
