Whaddya Know About That Covidy Puzzle with the Kiddos?
Identification of factors driving COVID-19 reactions in children uncovered
Damn thing's a real mind-boggler, ain't it? During the Covid mess, some little rippers were getting hit hard with this inflammation thing all over their bodies. You might've heard of it as Pediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome, or PIMS for short. It pops up a few weeks after a Sars-CoV-2 infection, and it can be bad news bears if you don't catch it early.
But now, scientists reckon they've cracked the code on this beast. Seems like the inflammatory response in those poor kiddos is linked to a sneaky little virus nobody's thinking about—the Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV for short. Yep, that's the one causing infectious mono, the classic "kissing disease." Most folks get it at some point in their lives, but it usually don't cause any trouble.
However, when the immune system takes a hit after a corona infection, that latent EBV infection in the body can flare up. That's exactly what's happening with these kids experiencing PIMS, as they found out in their study and published in the journal "Nature."
Experts from Charité and the German Rheumatism Research Center (DRFZ) gathered 145 children aged 2 to 18 who developed PIMS between 2021 and 2023. They compared them to 105 kids who had a corona infection but didn't get PIMS. Turns out, two-thirds of the PIMS kids had EBV lurking in their blood, while those without PIMS didn't. Plus, PIMS kids showed an increase in EBV-specific T-cells, suggesting a reactivation of EBV was behind it all.
wtffact, 80% of the PIMS kids had EBV-specific antibodies in their bodies, meaning their immune systems were trying to fight the virus—but failing. The scientists think a substance called TGFβ, produced in large amounts after a Covid infection, is to blame. It inhibits the function of immune cells, allowing the EBV to replicate and spark an extreme inflammatory response that can damage organs.
This little breakthrough could help with long Covid, too, which is the long-term health effects of a Covid infection. There's a suspicion that dormant viruses might play a part in long Covid, and if that's true, those TGFβ inhibitors could be a potential therapy against long Covid, according to the study authors.
But don't go popping any champagne just yet—since autumn 2022, PIMS cases have been few and far between, probably due to a high basic immunity in the population and less stimulation of the immune system by newer Covid variants. Looks like fewer kids are getting PIMS or their symptoms are milder, so they might not be diagnosed with PIMS anymore.
Source: ntv.de, jaz/dpa
- Covid-19
- Children
- Viruses
- The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), known for causing infectious mononucleosis, was found to be linked to Pediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome (PIMS) in children, which occurs after a Sars-CoV-2 infection.
- During the study, the experts found that two-thirds of the PIMS children had EBV in their blood, and their immune system showed an increase in EBV-specific T-cells, suggesting a reactivation of EBV.
- The study authors suggested that a substance called TGFβ, produced in large amounts after a Covid-19 infection, may contribute to the replication of EBV and the subsequent inflammatory response in children, potentially leading to long-term health effects or PIMS.
