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Kawasaki Disease
How Much do You Know About This Infectious Illness?
By Jenn Director Knudsen
She adds that a Kawasaki-induced fever can continue for weeks and that such a long-term fever is highly unusual in most "benign childhood illnesses."
The point, of course, is Kawasaki is not benign.
Consistent with other infectious diseases, Kawasaki's prevalence is cyclical. Rowley notes a recent increase in its incidence – 73 children were treated at her hospital for Kawasaki in 2006, whereas between 50 and 60 kids usually contract it each year. And she's already seen many cases – among mainly non-Asians – in January 2007.
"We've already been quite busy with new cases this month," says Rowley, also the mother of three children and professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Such cycles are tough to explain. Even more mysterious is what causes Kawasaki in the first place. "Scientists around the world have struggled to identify the causes of Kawasaki disease, but this is still not known," according to the Children's Memorial Hospital Center for Kawasaki Disease Web page.
A virus seems the likely culprit. But, curiously, it's believed lots of people are exposed to it and remain asymptomatic (showing no symptoms and not getting sick). Only a few people get the full-blown disease. This may be due to an individual's susceptibility to one or another virus, Rowley says.
Over the years, doctors' head-scratching has led to various explanations for the disease's onset, including environmental causes, nearly all debunked today. What does seem agreed upon, however, is that the infection is spread via the respiratory tract and not via fecal-oral transmission. Even more confounding, Kawasaki is an infectious disease but is not contagious.
Confusion aside, parents must educate themselves about Kawasaki because its outward symptoms mask something potentially very sinister taking place inside the body.
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