In May, doctors announced they were seeing a new and rare coronavirus complication in children. Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta warns, it’s appearing in adults, too.
Called MIS-C, which stands for Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, the complication manifests roughly two to four weeks after a coronavirus infection. Experts suspect that children who develop this syndrome were exposed to the virus and that their bodies mounted an exaggerated immune response, the AJC’s Helena Oliviero wrote. Symptoms are similar to toxic shock and Kawasaki disease: fever, rashes, swollen glands and, in severe cases, heart inflammation.
Since June, several case reports have described a similar syndrome in adults. The CDC’s review describes 27 patients who had cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, dermatologic and neurologic symptoms without severe respiratory illness and who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.