Outbreak of a mysterious wind-borne disease that causes heart failure in Californian children

A wind-borne disease that ignites blood vessels and causes heart failure infects children in San Diego, health officials said.

Since the beginning of the year, 16 children have been diagnosed with Kawasaki disease, according to the San Diego County Health and Social Services Agency.

Researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine told the agency that twice as many children had been diagnosed compared to previous years.

Experts say the disease may be weather-related and the triggers for the disease have been transmitted to the United States by the Asian wind.

Although scientists do not know what the cause of the disease is, previous studies have shown that climatic and environmental characteristics can play a role.

"We want community health care providers to exercise increased vigilance with respect to Kawasaki disease cases in these periods of wet and cool weather," said Dr. Jane Burns, pediatrician of the United States. Rady Children's Hospital & San Diego Hospital and Director of the Kawasaki Disease Research Center. declaration.

"The climatic patterns associated with the increase in the number of children diagnosed have been more prevalent here so far this year."

Kawasaki disease is a disease that causes inflammation of the walls of the blood vessels and mainly affects children under five.

The inflammation can weaken or damage the coronary arteries, which feed the heart with blood.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), this can lead to aneurysms, heart attacks or heart failure. That is why Kawasaki disease is considered one of the leading causes of heart disease in children.

Symptoms include fever, rash, swelling of hands and feet, redness of the whites of the eyes, and swollen lymph nodes in the throat.

The treatment usually comes in the form of aspirin against fever, rash and intravenous immunoglobulin treatment – blood-based treatment taken – to reduce the risk of developing coronary heart defects.

"Kawasaki disease is not a disease that many doctors have diagnosed and it can be confused with other more common diseases," said Dr. Wilma Wooten, county public health officer, in a press release.

"We are alerting health care professionals and parents today to make them aware of the increasing activity related to Kawasaki disease currently in our community."

The incidence of Kawasaki disease is highest in Japan and, in the United States, it occurs most often in children of American-Asian descent, according to the AHA.

The San Diego Health and Social Services Agency said the number of cases in the county has been increasing for 30 years.

In the 1990s, 10 children under five in 100,000 in San Diego were affected by the disease.

However, between 2006 and 2015, the incidence increased to 25.5 per 100,000 children under five.