A new wave of acute hepatitis infections that have been infecting children in the US, UK, and EU in the past several days has now appeared in Japan in a sign that the culprit is spreading.
169 children have already been infected, ranging in age from infants to as old as 16 years old, and have appeared in 12 countries already.
The cause is still unclear, and although some have linked it to an adenovirus, an adenovirus has only been detected in 40% of the cases, and was not present in the Japanese case.
The UK has suggested that this outbreak is potentially linked with the coronavirus and is in the process of investigating this potential link.
This hepatitis outbreak has been extremely serious, and 17 of the 169 children have already been forced to undergo liver transplantation to save their lives, with one death reported.