A fatal case of acute encephalopathy in a child due to coxsackievirus A2 infection: a case report

Abstract

Abstract Background Certain types of enteroviruses, including coxsackieviruses, cause encephalitis, and other neurological complications. However, these pathogens rarely cause fatal infections, especially in immunocompetent infants. In this study, we present a rare case of acute encephalopathy caused by coxsackievirus A2 (CV-A2), which progressed rapidly in a previously healthy female child. Case presentation In June 2013, a 26-month-old female child from Kanagawa, Japan, was found unresponsive during sleep. She was healthy until that morning. Her temperature was 37 °C at 08:00. She was feeling fine and went to the nursery that same morning. However, her condition worsened around noon. Therefore, she went home and slept at around 13:00. Surprisingly, after 2 h, her parents checked on her and found that she was lying on her back and was not breathing. Hence, she was immediately taken to a hospital by ambulance, but she was declared dead on arrival at the hospital. Subsequently, pathological autopsy and pathogenetic analysis, including multiple pathogen detection real-time PCR, were conducted to investigate the cause of death. The examination results revealed that she had an infectious respiratory disease and acute encephalopathy due to a CV-A2 infection. Conclusions Based on our findings, we concluded that a previously healthy girl who had no immediate history of underlying medical condition were susceptible to death by acute encephalopathy due to CV-A2 infections. We proposed this conclusion because the patient’s condition progressed rapidly in less than 2 h and eventually led to her death. This is the first report on an acute encephalitis-dependent death in a child due to CV-A2 infection.