Katharina Buczek
A new study conducted by the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has revealed a possible link between COVID-19 and bacterial brain infections among children.
According to a CDC report, intracranial bacterial infections “occur as a rare complication of partially treated or untreated bacterial rhinosinusitis in adolescents as well as mastoiditis in children of all ages.”
However, pediatric centers reported an uptick in these infection diagnoses throughout the first two years of the pandemic.
Moreover, they were either diagnosed during or immediately following COVID-19 infection.
The DeVos Children’s Hospital was particularly alarmed by its rates of intracranial bacterial infections among children– which increased a monstrous two hundred and thirty-six percent.
So, Dr. Rosemary Olivero– the study’s senior author and a pediatric infectious disease expert– led an inquiry.
She and her team surveyed one hundred and nine hospitals to figure out if other pediatric centers were also seeing a rise in brain abscesses and other intracranial buildups amidst COVID-19.
And of the hospitals surveyed, forty-three percent reported rising brain infections. Dr. Olivero recognizes that the occurrences may just be a coincidence.
But, she also detailed how the weakened immune state COVID-19 patients experience may give way for the intracranial bacterial infections to manifest.
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