13-year-old Karnataka boy diagnosed with rare post-Covid brain disease: Report

Doctors said they will have examine how severely his brain is damaged once he recovers.

A 13-year-old boy in Davangere district of Karnataka has been diagnosed with a rare post-Covid-19 complication that affects the brain, which doctors have said is the first such case in the state and the second in the country, according to a report. The News Minute reported that the patient has Acute Necrotizing Encephalopathy of Childhood (ANEC) and has been in hospital for the last eight days ago.

The 13-year-old boy was put on ventilator support for three days and after he showed signs of improvement he was taken off the machine. (AFP Photo/Representative Image)

NK Kalappanavar, the director of the SS Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, said when the boy was examined by doctors they found that his brain was inactive. He was put on ventilator support for three days and after he showed signs of improvement he was taken off the machine, The News Minute said.

"The patient requires one more week's treatment. We need to examine how severely his brain is damaged once he recovers," Kalappanavar said during a joint press conference with Davangere's deputy commissioner Mahantesh Belagi. "The treatment is very costly as each injection costs anywhere between ₹75,000 and ₹1 lakh for every child weighing around 30kg," he was quoted as saying by the digital news platform.

According to the National Institutes of Health under the US department of health & human services, ANEC is a rare disease characterised by brain damage that usually follows an acute febrile disease, mostly viral infections. It is caused by environmental factors as well as genetic factors."The symptoms of the viral infection (fever, respiratory infection, and gastroenteritis, among others) are followed by seizures, disturbance of consciousness that may rapidly progress to a coma, liver problems, and neurological deficits," it said.

Doctors across the country have said people who have recovered from Covid-19 have complained of high-grade fever, lung fibrosis, mucormycosis (Black Fungus) and other bacterial infections. Some Covid-19 patients have also been admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) after recovering from Covid-19. Many have died as well.