Kawasaki disease, can be associated with wind currents
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Kawasaki 's disease is a serious childhood illness that most parents, and even some doctors, are mistaken for a banal viral infection. In fact, if the Kawasaki disease is not diagnosed and started on time, it can lead to irreversible damage to the heart muscle. Over the past 50 years, carrying out numerous studies, including genetic, scientists have not been able to determine the exact cause of the disease.
An international group of scientists, led by Jane C. Burns of the Rady Hospital in San Diego, USA, suggests that Kawasaki disease cases are associated with large-scale wind currents that travel from Asia to Japan, as well as crossing the northern part of the Pacific Ocean.
"Our research shows the impact of environmental mechanisms, such as wind, on the development of Kawasaki's disease," Burns said. The article was published in the journal Nature.
Symptoms of Kawasaki disease include prolonged fever, skin rash, signs of conjunctivitis, redness of the skin of the mouth, lips and tongue, swelling of the hands and feet. In 1/4 of untreated cases, the disease is accompanied by damage to the coronary arteries and can lead to serious problems with the heart in adulthood. To date, there are no specific diagnostic criteria for Kawasaki's disease. Treatment is not able to prevent coronary artery damage in every child of 10. Deaths are recorded in 1 case out of 1000.
Despite the fact that the seasonality of the disease was noted in many regions - in particular, in Japan, the country where the highest incidence of Kawasaki disease - the search for factors that could contribute to the spread of Kawasaki's disease, was unsuccessful. In studying cases of Kawasaki disease in Japan, three dramatic nationwide epidemics have been recorded since 1970, each of which lasted several months and peaked in April 1979 (6,700 cases), in May 1982 (16,100 cases) and in March 1986 14,700 cases). These three highs represent the largest epidemics of Kawasaki disease ever recorded in the world.
To study the possible impact of large-scale environmental factors, scientists analyzed a number of atmospheric and oceanographic parameters that showed the relationship between atmospheric pressure and wind currents. It turned out that during the summer months before the epidemics there was a large-scale movement of air masses from the earth's surface into the middle layers of the troposphere.
"The data from the Japanese meteorological service showed that the low incidence of Kawasaki disease coincided with the period of winds from the south during the summer months," said Rodo, the project manager. "The peaks of morbidity coincided with the blowing of winds from Asia in the south-east direction," Burns said.
It is important to note that after three epidemics, the subsequent increase in the incidence of Kawasaki disease in Japan was due to the increase in local northwestern winds, as a result of the concentration of low pressure in the north.
Burns reports that the results of this study in the future can identify and isolate the cause of this devastating disease of childhood. "It may be that the infectious agent that causes Kawasaki disease is transported across the ocean by strong air currents," she said, adding that the role of contaminants and inert particles in the development of the disease can not be ignored. These hypotheses are currently being investigated.
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