Hyderabad: Not just children, multisystem inflammatory syndrome in Covid positive newborns too, says study | Hyderabad News

HYDERABAD: Multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS), which has so far been found in children with Covid-19, is also affecting infected newborns, revealed a multi-city research study involving doctors from Hyderabad too.
As many as 20 cases of MIS in neonates have been documented by the research team. There were a few deaths too. The researchers found that the pandemic virus is either passed on to the newborn through the placenta or the baby is infected soon after delivery.

The researchers said Covid-19 associated MIS is widely reported in paediatric population. But not much research has been done on MIS in newborns.
MIS in newborns has different clinical manifestations with multi-system involvement. The syndrome can be either mild or severe. In severe cases there is cardiac dysfunction in preterm newborns.
The research study also revealed that the syndrome occurred following immune dysregulation. It is associated with transplacental transfer of antibodies to the neonate or antibodies developed in the neonate following infection with the virus.
The result of the study was published in the latest issue of the European Journal of Paediatrics. Doctors from Paramitha Children Hospital in Hyderabad were part of the research study.
The study revealed that five of the 20 neonatal cases studied had respiratory distress. There were also cases of neonates showing hypotension (low blood pressure), shock and encephalopathy (brain disease). Laboratory reports showed that inflammatory markers like c-reactive protein, procalcitonin, ferritin, D-dimer and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were elevated. Luckily, most of the cases responded to immunomodulators.
“The neonatal immune system is immature and may not produce sufficient Covid-19 antibodies. However, a large study cohort recently demonstrated efficient transplacental transfer of antibodies from mother to foetus,” the researchers said.
The team cautioned clinicians regarding the increasing number of pregnant mothers who are either exposed to the pandemic virus during pregnancy or have received a Covid-19 vaccine. A few may have acquired antibodies via transfusion of any blood product.
“Transfer of these antibodies to the newborn may or may not cause MIS in neonates. It could however result in overdiagnosis of MIS by treating clinicians if these antibodies are incidentally detected during another illness. Thus, typing antibodies for anti-nucleoprotein antibodies suggesting past infection rather than anti-spike protein antibodies suggesting vaccination status can be considered to avoid confusion in situations where there is no definite evidence of present and past maternal Covid-19 infection,” they said.