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IN APRIL, REPORTS began emerging of cases of acute hepatitis of an unknown origin in children in Britain.
Within weeks, there were reports of the hepatitis (which is liver inflammation) in Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Spain.
Today, the HSE confirmed that one child has died after receiving treatment for this acute hepatitis, while a second child being treated for the illness received a liver transplant.
It’s unusual to have acute hepatitis occur in a child who was previously healthy – hepatitis is usually linked to hepatitis viruses, or things like autoimmune hepatitis, or due to medications, toxins or heavy alcohol use.
There is still a lot unknown about this illness and what appears to be its sudden emergence in clusters, but here’s what we know so far.
How many cases have occurred in Ireland so far?
The HSE said today that six probable cases of children with this hepatitis of unknown cause have been identified here over the past 10 weeks.
This is unusual – the HSE said that the number is “more than would usually be expected over this period of time”.
The children are aged between one and 12 years of age, and all had to be hospitalised. None of them are connected to each other.
In addition, a small number of children are under investigation to see if they too had the illness.
The HSE also said that no single virus has been identified in the cases, and investigations are underway to identify the cause.
What about cases in other countries?
The first cases emerged in March in Scotland - on 5 April there were 10 cases, by 8 April a total of 74 cases had been identified across the UK.
The European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) said on 11 May (yesterday) that approximately 450 cases have been reported worldwide.
We know that the majority - 163 cases as of 3 May – were identified in the UK, and 11 children in the UK have received a liver transplant.
The ECDC says that 35 cases have been identified in Italy and 22 in Spain, as well as smaller numbers in countries like Denmark, France, Cyprus, Austria and Belgium. Outside the EU, cases have been reported in countries including Israel, Japan, Panama, Palestine and Argentina.
Globally, the cases have affected children from one month to 16 years old. 17 children have required a liver transplant and at least one death has been reported.
The World Health Organisation says that international travel and links to other countries have so far not been identified as factors.
It’s not recommending restriction on travel or trade to any of the countries where cases have been identified, based on what’s currently known.
What do we know about the cause?
The common viruses that cause acute viral hepatitis – the hepatitis viruses A, B, C, D and E – have not been detected in any of the cases globally, the WHO says.
On 15 April, when the total number of cases was lower, it said that adenovirus had been detected in at least 74 cases. Adenoviruses can cause illnesses like the common cold, sore throat, acute bronchitis, pneumonia, and acute gastroenteritis.
Covid was identified in 20 cases of the hepatitis patients who were tested by that April date, said the WHO, and 19 had both Covid and an adenovirus co-infection.
Over in the UK, a technical briefing from the government in early May said that of 163 cases, 126 were tested for adenovirus, of which 91 had adenovirus detected. Covid was detected in 24 out of 132 cases.
The Netherlands also reported “concurrent increasing community adenovirus circulation”, the WHO said.
But it said that because of enhanced lab testing for adenovirus, these results could show the adenovirus being picked up at levels not previously shown, due to increased testing.
In the UK, the link to adenovirus is undergoing a formal epidemiological study.
The WHO also said that while adenovirus is one hypothesis as to the cause, it “does not fully explain the severity of the clinical picture”. The type of adenovirus (type 41) being picked up hasn’t been linked to this kind of hepatitis illness before. This type isn’t known to be a cause of hepatitis in otherwise healthy children.
The UK government said that among the hypotheses being pursued are a normal adenovirus due to:
Other lines of investigation are: a novel variant adenovirus; a post-infectious Covid-19 syndrome; a drug/toxin/environmental exposure; a novel pathogen; a new variant of Covid-19.
It’s important to underline that these are all just hypotheses being investigated, and none of them have been in any way confirmed.
Could the pandemic have anything to do with it?
The WHO says that there are some factors on this topic that need to be investigated, such as if there has been increased susceptibility among young children to adenovirus because of the lower level of it circulating during the pandemic.
What also needs to be investigated is if Covid co-infection has a link – but this is just at the investigation stage and not confirmed. The WHO says it should also be investigated if a novel (new) adenovirus has emerged.
It says that the vast majority of the affected children didn’t receive a Covid-19 vaccination, so any hypotheses claiming that had something to do with it are not supported.
What symptoms are children showing?
The WHO said that those with acute hepatitis – which is liver inflammation – have “markedly elevated” liver enzymes.
Symptom wise, they tend to report gastrointestinal symptoms, like abdominal (stomach) pain, diarrhoea and vomiting. This tends to be followed by signs of jaundice, like a yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes yellowing.
Most cases didn’t have a fever.
What advice is there for parents?
The HSE says that parents are advised to go to their GP if their child develops symptoms of hepatitis.
Symptoms of hepatitis can include:
“If their child has any of these 3 symptoms, they should contact their GP without delay. The GP will assess the child and refer on for further assessment as indicated,” said the HSE.
Other symptoms include:
If your child is unwell with respiratory or diarrheal or hepatitis symptoms, keep your child at home and do not send to crèche/preschool/school until they are better, the HSE advises.
The HSE also says that good respiratory and hand hygiene, including supervising hand washing in young children, can help to prevent adenovirus and also other infections that can cause hepatitis.
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Hopefully it will be worthwhile for farmers, unlike the laughable 2 cent a litre reduction on agri diesel we already witnessed.
@DERRY1973: Why the new quango cannot have its work done from within An Bord Bia? I guess it’s more important to have another €150k+ of taxpayers dosh doled out to another crony CEO.
Where will the seeds come from? It’s not as if there is extra seed available over normal years
93% of farmland in Ireland is grass. For every €288 per hectare in sales in 2019, the tax-payer added €461 per hectare to the income of beef farmers and for every €311 per hectare in sales in 2019, the tax-payer added €411 per hectare to the income of the sheep farmer. 90% of this produce is exported. McConalogue says he wants to promote fairness and promote crops that require less added nitrogen. Why then is he only offering €300 per hectare for nitrogen fixing crops (peas and beans) and only €400 per hectare for other crops?
@Sean Byrne: Those highly subsidised ruminant export commodities overwhelmingly contribute to the national release of 597 kilotonnes of methane. That’s equal the contents of over 52 million household gas cylinders. Our agricultural system is so wasteful because it is based on a glut of excess food, energy and fertiliser on world markets.
@Sean Byrne: Of all the insane things our government has done in the last two decades, increasing the size of the dairy herd may actually be the worst.
@Sean Byrne: Don’t be talking sense Sean. This is Ireland and logic doesn’t apply….
@Sean Byrne: “93% of farmland in Ireland is grass.”
83.7% of Irish farmland is Grassland (91.7% when excluding Commonage). Still a huge proportion which surprised me.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eii/eii2016/lu/
@David Jordan: I’m not seeing a “Commonage” category for those 2016 figures. Grassland is over 92% in both the census of Agriculture 2020 https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-coa/censusofagriculture2020-preliminaryresults/ and the statistical yearbook 2021 https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-syi/statisticalyearbookofireland2021part3/agri/cropsandlivestock/ .When added up, silage, hay, pasture and in use rough grazing isn’t quite 93% but it’s over 92%.
@Sean Byrne: @Sean Byrne: Ah, the new 2020 Census. Grassland is 82.1% of farmland:
” 82.1% Of Agricultural Area Utilised is under grassland ”
This excludes commonage which mainly marginal upland grazing, unsuitable for cereal crops.
Another Bord Bia will not help farmers or fisherman. In 2020 24 million euros was approved by europe for soil sampling on Irish farms. Not one penny made it into farmers pockets instead Teagase absorbed this entire budget. It was cheaper for farmers to get independent companies to soil sample yet that option was not even considered.
At present farmers can’t retire at 65 on any pension other than old age pension. Instead those pushing pens in government offices are guaranteed full pensions.
We need farmers to create co-ops like in the 80′s just this time don’t sell out to the Larry Goodman types.
@leartius: if farmers contribute to personal pensions like public service workers do then of course they’ll draw them down on retirement.
@leartius: I agree with a lot of what you said but on the pension one, you can’t draw down a pension if you have not put money into one. You can’t expect a bigger pension just because your a farmer.
Will this payments be paid for all hectares grown even if they don’t meet top quality marks. There is only so many harvesters in ireland to match what was harvesters last year. All these extra hectares will probably be harvestered late because of this and not meet the quality needed to get the full payment.
Can our grain silos store all this extra grain and foods. Its sounds great but are we changing everything in the short term and not thinking of the long game?
My God the minister is pure useless…. you can’t just click your fingers and get farmers to grow crops or wheat!!! Wheat by the way is one of the hardest crops to grow in Ireland. Why? Because the grains are graded. If if doesn’t make the grade it goes for animal feed and if it does make it, it goes for flour. Irelands climate to too wet to produce top quality wheat and there is no safety net if a crop fails because of a wet harvest hence why we grow lots of grass. Its perfectly suited to out climate.
The last 15 years Irelands tillage farmers struggled to make a profit. The dept of agriculture pushed for more dairy. So a lot of them moved to dairy. Now he wants them and other farmers to grow crops. It just doesn’t work like that. You need huge amounts of money for equipment seed and fertiliser.
Fertiliser has trebled in price wiping out and any profits come harvest time. A lot of it comes from Belarus and Russia. It’s not a good time to be a farmer. Without them we’d have no food and still most of the city folk do not value what they do. .
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: Ireland can produce high quality wheat it’s climate is cool temperate oceanic like that of the UK and they’ve been selling us milling wheat for year since they flooded the market with cheap wheat. Some parts of the centre and west the last is too wet and crops susceptible to fusarium and takeall but from north Cork south tipp Kildale wexford and north Co Dublin it can grow new varieties of milling wheat like skyfall winter and durum wheat. Its the way its farm will bring up the protein levels.
It’s was government decision that altered Irish farming for the worse closing down Mills as they couldn’t complete again cheaper imports. I don’t need to remind about the sugar factories ……… just cause eu wanted it to be shut and then sold the land for housing omg
As some were saying , they need the equipment to do it , it’s not like just go out to the farm and the tractor does everything.
Last year there were record yields. We need to support specialised tillage farmers by subsidising fertiliser. It’s the most economic, easiest and best way to do it. If we don’t do this, we’ll have only 50-60% of the harvest yield of last year which is bad for many other sectors in the Agri-food sector. Asking non-tillage farmers to grow tillage doesn’t make sense as they’ll need contractors who are stretched enough as it is due to scarcity in labour.
What Does Ryan think about this plan As he seems to think he Has All the Answers
I don’t want to be a killjoy and this is all very welcome. I’m also open to correction, but.what happens if we sow all these crops and then don’t get good enough weather to get good yields from said crop ? I could be way off the wall with this question
@Declan Moran: the problem is tillage farmers will reduce fertiliser rates by about 20% due to fertiliser increases. Yield might fall 15%. Then the weather could have an effect but there is not much we can do about that. So if could we could get a small increase in production in a year with a pronounced fertiliser crisis that would be good. Might offset some of our import requirements next year.
Paying farmers to grow crops,? Where is the seed coming from? , where Will the land come from,? to grow crops ,is this just another subside scam for subsidized forage ,? more hay from Holland,?
This is a joke. Box ticking.
Most non tillage existing farm enterprises ( dairy beef sheep…) are maxed on stocking rates (animals / acre)
Where is extra land coming from
have your say