Doctors are sounding the alarm about Nevada’s mysterious outbreak of brain infections in children — and they think it’s linked to COVID lockdowns
Health officials are sounding the alarm about a spike in rare and serious brain abscesses in children in and around Las Vegas, Nevada.
Experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are examining the surge in cases, while doctors across America say they’re also seeing a rise in cases.
The number of brain abscesses in minors tripled in Nevada last year, from an average of four or five a year to 18.
Dr. Taryn Bragg, a pediatric neurosurgeon and associate professor at the University of Utah who is treating the cases, told CNN she had “never seen anything like it” in her 20 years of experience.
Doctors aren’t sure what caused the rise, but said it could be due to weakened immunity to infection due to Covid measures such as lockdowns.
The first symptoms of brain abscesses are headache plus periodic fever. But they can lead to seizures, vision changes, vomiting, loss of muscle function on one side of the body, language problems, and changes in mental status
There has been a spike in rare and serious brain abscesses in children in and around Las Vegas, Nevada
Dr. Bragg was able to recognize the pattern and notify local public health officials because she is Nevada’s only pediatric neurosurgeon.
After March 2022, she said there was a “huge increase” in brain abscesses, which is “unusual,” especially as “the similarities in terms of case presentation were striking.”
In almost all cases, the child developed a typical childhood illness such as earache or sinusitis, with headache and fever.
Dr. Bragg said it would become clear in a few days that something more serious was going on.
It emerged that doctors in the US are seeing more and more brain abscesses in younger populations.
Dr. Sunil Sood, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Northwell Health, a health system in New York, suspected his institution was seeing at least double that number of brain abscesses.
By themselves, brain abscesses are non-reportable, meaning doctors don’t have to tell public health officials when they occur.
Brain abscesses are pus-filled swellings in the brain. They normally happen when bacteria or fungi get into brain tissue after an infection or severe head injury.
The first symptoms are headache plus periodic fever. It can lead to seizures, vision changes, vomiting, loss of muscle function on one side of the body, language problems, and changes in mental status.
In the Clark County peak, about three-quarters of cases happened in boys around age 12.
Dr. Jessica Penney, the CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officer for the Southern Nevada Health District, said that between 2015 and 2020, the number of brain abscess cases in children remained consistently four per year.
In 2020, numbers dropped, likely due to Covid measures such as lockdowns, school closures, masking and social distancing.
The following year, the number of brain abscesses returned to normal and then skyrocketed in 2022.
Dr. Penney said the spike could be due to an immunity debt from the pandemic, when children weren’t exposed to respiratory illnesses and couldn’t build natural defenses.
Dr. However, Sood disagrees. He believes Covid has temporarily displaced infections and driven others away.
As Covid cases have calmed down, other childhood infections have returned – such as the RSV explosion in the fall and winter of 2022.