Experts have sounded the alarm over a rare deadly Covid side effect after a young girl was killed after the virus spread to her brain.
Doctors revealed the eight year-old developed a fever and suffered multiple seizures just days after unknowingly contracting the infection.
Yet she wasn’t tested for Covid initially, as her symptoms had no ‘identifiable trigger’, according to Chinese doctors who shared her story in a medical journal.
It was only after her seizures worsened leaving her ‘frothing at the mouth’ and her ‘limbs stiffened and shook’, that she was transferred to a different hospital and intubated to help her breathe.
Tests then showed she had developed the rare brain disorder acute necrotising encephalopathy (ANE), which had ‘likely’ resulted from a Covid infection.
But her condition worsened and nine days after first seeking medical attention, medics declared her brain dead and her life support was switched off.
Research has previously shown Covid can reach the human brain, causing both respiratory distress and neurological issues.
However, medics at Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Centre, said there were still major ‘gaps’ in doctors’ knowledge regarding the best way to treat children with Covid who suffer ‘rapid-onset neurological decline’.
Doctors revealed the 8-year-old developed a fever and suffered multiple seizures just days after unknowingly contracting the virus. Pictured, CT scans of the unidentified girl’s brain showing a swollen brainstem that has lost density
Yet she wasn’t tested for Covid initially, as her symptoms had no ‘identifiable trigger’, according to Chinese medics who shared her story in a journal
Writing in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases, they added: ‘Although Covid typically presents with respiratory symptoms, it can also lead to severe neurological manifestations in children.’
Figures suggest at least three quarters of all British adults have been infected with Covid at least once since the pandemic began in 2020.
Acute necrotising encephalopathy (ANE) occurs when the body’s immune system overreacts to a common virus like Covid or flu.
It is incredibly rare, with just a few hundred documented cases in medical literature.
It causes widespread inflammation and tissue damage throughout the body, including the brain.
This lets toxins and bacteria enter the brain and kill tissue. Over time, the brain swells and cells die.
According to medics, the unidentified child’s first symptoms included a temperature—just over 38°C—as well as a headache, a bumpy rash on her arms, legs and torso, and vomiting.
She was taken to a local health clinic, where she was given medication that failed to ease her symptoms.
ANE, which occurs when the body’s immune system overreacts to a common virus like Covid or flu, however is incredibly rare, with just a few hundred documented cases in medical literature. Pictured, illustration of Covid virus
The following day she experienced her first tonic-clonic seizure that had her ‘frothing at the mouth’.
Such seizure attacks tend to involve electrical disruption in several parts of the brain, which then affects several parts of the body.
They cause muscles to stiffen arms and usually the legs begin to jerk rapidly and rhythmically.
After she was transferred to a hospital in Guangzhou, she suffered another minute-long seizure that left her vomiting, and was prescribed antibiotics to treat a suspected infection.
Medics stopped a third seizure the following morning by giving her diazepam but she then fell into a ‘comatose state’, and she was incubated to help her breathe.
Transferred to a second hospital, Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Centre, tests there revealed her saliva was positive for Covid.
Rotavirus—another respiratory infection—was also detected in her stools and blood, although doctors stated the Covid virus was a more likely cause of the neurological complications.
‘Despite aggressive therapy, the patient remained in profound coma without sedation’, medics added.
She didn’t appear to feel pain, couldn’t breathe for herself and had minimal brain function.
Two additional medical evaluations over the following two days saw doctors determine she had been left brain dead by the virus-induced seizures.
‘Covid is the more likely dominant factor in this severe encephalopathy—though a co-infection scenario cannot be fully excluded,’ the authors wrote.
‘Without autopsy or direct pathogen detection in the brain tissue, the definitive culprit remains uncertain.’
The case also proves that children and babies do not necessarily experience milder Covid infections, they added.
‘This case highlights the urgent need for early recognition of neurological complications in children with Covid.
‘Clinicians should maintain heightened vigilance for atypical presentations, including rapid neurological deterioration post-infection.’
In the UK, ministers have repeatedly said they won’t resort to imposing lockdowns unless a doomsday Covid variant appears.
A wall of immunity among the population — built up by repeated waves of infection and vaccine rollouts — has given officials confidence to consign pandemic-era measures to history.
Spikes in Covid cases can still cause mass illness across the country, sparking chaos in schools, the health service and public transport.
But officials also no longer track the prevalence of the virus in the same way they used to, as part of the Government’s ushering in of pre-Covid normalities.
