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A fatal case of acute encephalopathy in a child due to coxsackievirus A2 infection: a case report

Authors :
Hiroyuki Shimizu
Nozomu Hanaoka
Harutaka Katano
Keiko Tanaka-Taya
Tomonori Nagai
Tsuguto Fujimoto
Toshiji Mukai
Masami Konagaya
Source :
BMC Infectious Diseases, Vol 21, Iss 1, Pp 1-5 (2021), BMC Infectious Diseases
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
BMC, 2021.

Abstract

Background Certain types of enteroviruses, including coxsackieviruses, cause encephalitis, and other neurological complications. However, these pathogens rarely cause fatal infections, especially in immunocompetent infants. In this study, we present a rare case of acute encephalopathy caused by coxsackievirus A2 (CV-A2), which progressed rapidly in a previously healthy female child. Case presentation In June 2013, a 26-month-old female child from Kanagawa, Japan, was found unresponsive during sleep. She was healthy until that morning. Her temperature was 37 °C at 08:00. She was feeling fine and went to the nursery that same morning. However, her condition worsened around noon. Therefore, she went home and slept at around 13:00. Surprisingly, after 2 h, her parents checked on her and found that she was lying on her back and was not breathing. Hence, she was immediately taken to a hospital by ambulance, but she was declared dead on arrival at the hospital. Subsequently, pathological autopsy and pathogenetic analysis, including multiple pathogen detection real-time PCR, were conducted to investigate the cause of death. The examination results revealed that she had an infectious respiratory disease and acute encephalopathy due to a CV-A2 infection. Conclusions Based on our findings, we concluded that a previously healthy girl who had no immediate history of underlying medical condition were susceptible to death by acute encephalopathy due to CV-A2 infections. We proposed this conclusion because the patient’s condition progressed rapidly in less than 2 h and eventually led to her death. This is the first report on an acute encephalitis-dependent death in a child due to CV-A2 infection.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
14712334
Volume :
21
Issue :
1
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
BMC Infectious Diseases
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....380477633efdf85828271488571df65a