Around 200 cases of mysterious acute hepatitis—sudden-onset liver disease of unknown origin—in children have been confirmed in recent months across over a dozen countries around the world. Similar such cases have also in recent days been reported in Canada and Japan.
These cases of hepatitis involve children aged 1 month to 16 years old, many of whom suddenly developed gastrointestinal symptoms including abdominal pain, diarrhea, and vomiting, before coming down with jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), and severe acute hepatitis, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on April 23. Most of the cases did not have a fever. WHO also noted that none of the cases had any of the five common hepatitis viruses—A, B, C, D and E.
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