NIH will award up to $20 million for research into MIS-C
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The NIH said it will award up to $20 million over 4 years to fund research projects that seek to identify factors that place children at high risk for developing a serious inflammatory syndrome linked to COVID-19.
The CDC has identified a patient with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) as someone aged younger than 21 years who presents with a fever, with evidence of inflammation in multiple systems and exposure to COVID-19 within 4 weeks before developing symptoms.
As of Aug. 6, there were 570 confirmed cases and 10 deaths from MIS-C in 40 states and Washington, D.C., according to the CDC. Of these patients, 565 have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, whereas the remaining five patients were exposed to someone with COVID-19.
More than 70% of cases have occurred in children who are either Hispanic, Latino or Black.
“We urgently need methods to distinguish children at high risk for MIS-C from those unlikely to experience major ill effects from the virus, so we can develop early interventions to improve their outcomes,” Diana W. Bianchi, MD, director of NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), said in a statement.
The new NICHD-led project is a part of the NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative to speed innovation in developing, commercializing and implementing technologies for COVID-19 research, the NIH said. It will “encourage development of cutting-edge approaches for understanding the underlying factors influencing the spectrum of conditions that may occur in children and youth infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These range from no symptoms at all to fever and cough, abdominal pain and diarrhea, and inflammation of the coronary arteries,” the NIH said. “The goal of the initiative is to understand the range of symptoms of COVID-19 and the factors leading to MIS-C.”
Studies that are funded through the program will evaluate genes and biomarkers in pediatric COVID-19 cases. They will also examine how the virus interacts with its host and how the immune system reacts.
According to a new MMWR report summarizing outcomes from pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations in 14 states, one in three children hospitalized with the disease was admitted to an ICU.
References:
Perspective
Back to TopDavid Cennimo, MD
This is potentially very important and could illuminate many aspects of COVID-19 infection. First, as stated, we need to better understand who is at risk for severe COVID-19 and MIS-C. It is inappropriately oversimplified to only focus on the majority of children who have minimal COVID-19 symptoms and overlook those who develop potentially life-threatening complications. If we better understood these risks, we could act sooner to help mitigate the morbidity. Second, the risk factors for MIS-C that are identified in children should be explored in adults who develop severe COVID-19 and cytokine storm, as there is a potential overlap in these syndromes. As we see, more children with MIS-C aspects of their condition appear very similar to adults and we should be looking for common predispositions and risk factors.
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