The mysterious outbreak of a more acute form of hepatitis amongst children in 22 countries, including Ireland, has caused concern throughout the medical community.
The Health Service Executive confirmed on Thursday that a further seven cases of the unexplained illness are under investigation in addition to the six cases reported by the HSE last week.
One child being treated for the illness in Ireland sadly died last week, while another required a liver transplant.
READ MORE: Fears grow over mystery hepatitis strain that’s killed an Irish child as parents urged to know signs
Speaking to Newstalk on what is causing the strange illness, Professor Sam McConkey, Infectious Disease Specialist at the RCSI, said scientists across the globe are in a race to find a solution.
He said: "So there is a bit of a race, as you can imagine. All the enthusiastic, ambitious scientists are all trying to crack this and work out what's causing it, and that's happening in Ireland.
"The Health Protection Surveillance Centre is coordinating how we invest to look after each and every possible case in a way of trying to optimise the chances of finding what's the cause of the Irish cases and then every other country who has it, as you say 22, are doing the same thing, in Britain and America.
"The European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm in Sweden is coordinating efforts at European levels so that we are all looking at it in a systematic way and the results from here can be compared to other countries."
Prof McConkey then explained three possible causes of the severe form of hepatitis.
He said: "I would put forward three potential answers to this, and it will probably be one of these three.
"First is a toxin that could be in the environment from chemicals that we're exposed to or in our food chains which are very international, as we all know.
"Or possibly at the beginning, I thought it could be our medication, but that would be so clear cut that if it was a medicine that we would know that by now. So it's almost certainly not a tablet.
"The second interesting possibility, Pat, is it could be a new virus, and we are all, of course, familiar with Sars-CoV-2. It didn't exist as far as we know two or three years ago, and then it came on us and caused the pandemic. So this could be a new virus people are looking for I suppose you could call it hepatitis H virus we have A B C D E, and there is a G, so a new type of virus that could cause it. People are widely looking for that… so far, nothing has come up on that.
"And the third possibility could be a new manifestation, a new presentation of an old virus like adenovirus people are wondering could it be Sars-CoV-2 or Covid-19 doing it some of the cases have it Sars-CoV-2 and Covid-19 but of course you know we are in the tail end of a Sars-CoV-2 pandemic right now so a lot of children will inevitably have it and it doesn't appear to be much more than you would expect based on the way the population in Ireland."
Prof McConkey also explained how social distancing may have played a part in the severity of the illness.
He said: "It could be linked to the social distancing we've all had, Pat. We've all been sort of not physically interacting with as many people for the last couple of years, so little children haven't been getting their usual childhood… fevers and red noses, snotty noses that children normally get in the first couple of years of life.
"Those normal things have been deferred potentially for a year or two because of this social distancing that we've all suffered from, let's say, so it could be a virus that gets more severe disease when you get it at an older age group.
"There are already several examples of that you know like polio if you get it in adult you get severe paralysis if you get it as a small child it's very few symptoms same is true for hepatitis A as a small baby if you get it you get no symptoms bit you get it as an older adult you get very very sick and can even die of hepatitis from adult-onset hep A.
"so there are examples of other viruses that make you sicker when you get it at an older age group, so it could be the physical distancing… that has led to a change in the epidemiology of another virus."
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