The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a health alert to inform hospitals and doctors that parechovirus, a virus that can cause severe symptoms among young infants and newborns, is “currently circulating in the United States.”
On Twitter, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky made note of the alert on Tuesday and wrote that “clinicians should consider PeV infection in infants presenting with fever, sepsis-like syndrome or signs of neurologic involvement without other known cause.”
Since May 2022, the agency said it has received reports in several states about parechovirus infections in young infants and newborn babies.
“Parechoviruses are a group of viruses known to cause a spectrum of disease in humans,” the CDC notice, dated July 12, read. “Clinicians are encouraged to include [parechovirus] in the differential diagnoses of infants presenting with fever, sepsis-like syndrome, or neurologic illness (seizures, meningitis) without another known cause and to test for [parechovirus] in children with signs and symptoms compatible” with the virus….