Tedros, the WHO’s general director, talked during a press conference on April 26 about the latest data on the rising hepatitis infections.
Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, Dr. Philippe Duneton, Executive Director of Unitaid, Dr. Bill Rodriguez, CEO of FIND and Dr. Juan Pablo Uribe, the Global Director for Health, Nutrition and Population at the World Bank participated in this conference.
“Over the weekend, WHO released an update about cases of acute hepatitis of unknown origin among children.
So far, at least 169 cases of acute hepatitis have been reported from 11 countries in Europe, and in the United States, in children aged from 1 month to 16 years.
Seventeen children – about 10 percent of the reported cases – have required liver transplants, and one death has been reported.
The symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhoea, vomiting, jaundice, severe acute hepatitis, and increased levels of liver enzymes.” said Tedros.
Also over the weekend, health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared an outbreak of Ebola, after a case was confirmed in Mbandaka, a city in the north-western Equateur Province of DRC.
A second case was confirmed on Tuesday April 26, in a relative of the first patient. Unfortunately, both patients have died.
Tedros stated that globally reported cases and deaths continue to decline in Covid 19, “which is very encouraging and good news” he said.
At the end of the conference Tedros spoke about the antiviral combination nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, also known as Paxlovid, for patients with mild or moderate COVID-19 that are at high-risk of hospitalization and that on Friday WHO recommended this treatment which helps prevent hospitalizations and is easy to administer.
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