A leading expert has urged parents to look out for a crucial symptom of a Covid-related illness that affects children.
The warning comes after in emerged earlier this week that a five-year-old boy was in ICU in Our Lady's Hospital Crumlin with PIMS (paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome) - a rare but potentially fatal condition.
At least 32 children have been treated in Crumlin for PIMS since December and paediatric immunologist at the hospital, Dr Ronan Leahy has advised parents to be wary of one key symptom that could indicate their kids have the illness.
"The crucial symptom to watch out for is fever," he told the Irish Independent.
"Cases always have fever. The other feature we often see are rashes on the hands and feet and redness of eyes.
"Some more consistent features after that are tummy pain, diarrhoea and vomiting.
"In essence, if you have a child with a fever and you don't have a good explanation, you should bring them to a GP or the emergency department.
"If a child has a fever for three days, go to the ED."
Dr Leahy added that the number of PIMS closely mirrors the number of COVID-19 cases in a community and usually emerge a number of weeks later.
He said: "There was quite a big surge in COVID-19 in December, so I'm not surprised if there are more cases of PIMS-TS.
"Numerically, the more infections of COVID-19, the probability is we will see more PIMS-TS."
There have been no deaths from PIMS in Ireland but a small number of children suffering from the illness have been put on ventilators.
The illness comes about after children are exposed to COVID-19 and their bodies then produce a delayed inflammatory response.
"The immune system, which is meant to protect from infection, gets confused and produces and exaggerated inflammatory response," said Dr Leahy.
It is believed that PIMS develops between two and four weeks after a child is infected with COVID.
In some cases the child will not have shown symptoms of coronavirus before developing PIMS.
Those suffering from the illness can see their temperature shoot up to 40C and their blood pressure can drop dangerously low.
