Mystery liver disease kills three children in Indonesia
- Indonesia’s Health Ministry said in a statement the children died in hospitals last month, after displaying symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea
- At least 228 probable cases of hepatitis of unknown origin in children have now been reported to the WHO from 20 countries, the UN health agency said
Three children in Indonesia have died from a mysterious liver disease, the country’s health ministry said, raising to at least four the global death toll of a fatal ailment puzzling doctors from the US to Asia.
The symptoms afflicting the children include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and abdominal pain – before their livers showed signs of inflammation. At least one death was previously reported.
Indonesia’s Health Ministry said that three children had died in hospitals in the capital Jakarta last month, after displaying some of these symptoms.
The children – aged two, eight, and 11 – also had fever, jaundice, convulsions and loss of consciousness, the ministry’s spokesperson Siti Nadia Tarmizi told Agence France-Presse.
“At the moment, we suspect the cases as acute hepatitis but we need to confirm that they are not due to known hepatitis viruses A, B, C, D, and Rb,” Tarmizi said.