Five-year-old treated for rare brain disorder after adenovirus infection

A five-year-old Garia girl was suffering from a high fever with a cough and cold for a couple of days.

- Ashok Chatterjee

On the third day, she started having convulsions at home and slipped into a coma. The child was rushed to the hospital, where she was kept under ventilation.

Her viral panel came to be positive for adenovirus infection. An MRI of the brain showed extensive haemorrhage in the thalamus, pons, and medulla parts of the brain which controls consciousness, emotion, higher function, breathing etc. This is known as acute necrotising encephalitis of childhood (ANEC), which is an inflammatory condition of the brain triggered by a simple viral infection.

A similar case of ANEC was reported from the Davanagere district of Karnataka in 2021, where a 13-year-old boy was also treated for more than a week.

Initially, medicines to suppress the inflammation like steroids, and IVIG were given to the Kolkata child in high doses but in vain. Then a special and rare medicine called Rituximab was given which suppresses all the inflammation in the body but predisposes a person to serious life-threatening infections.