13-yr-old boy in Karnataka diagnosed with rare post-Covid brain disease

The 13-year-old boy in Davangere district of Karnataka has been diagnosed with Acute Necrotizing Encephalopathy of Childhood (ANEC) and has been hospitalized for the last eight days, reported News Minute.

The doctors at SS Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre found on examination that the boy's brain was inactive, said NK Kalappanavar, Medical Director of SS Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre.

After he was put on ventilator support for three days, he showed signs of improvement and he could be removed from the machine, the report stated.

"The patient requires one more week's treatment. We need to examine how severely his brain is damaged once he recovers," Kalappanavar said during a joint press conference with Davangere's deputy commissioner Mahantesh Belagi.

"The treatment is very costly as each injection costs anywhere between Rs 75,000 and Rs 1 lakh for every child weighing around 30kg," he was quoted as saying by the digital news platform.

According to the National Institutes of Health under the US department of health & human services, ANEC is a rare disease characterised by brain damage that usually follows an acute febrile disease, mostly viral infections. It is caused by environmental factors as well as genetic factors.

"The symptoms of the viral infection (fever, respiratory infection, and gastroenteritis, among others) are followed by seizures, disturbance of consciousness that may rapidly progress to a coma, liver problems, and neurological deficits," it said.

Patients across the country, who have recovered from Covid-19, have complained of high-grade fever, mucormycosis (Black Fungus), lung fibrosis and other bacterial infections.

Several of them required treatment in intensive care units (ICUs) after recovering from Covid-19. Many have succumbed sue to post-Covid diseases or complications.