AN urgent warning has been issued over a life-threatening illness that causes seizures and sepsis in children and has already resulted in the death of one baby.

The Centers for Disease Control on Tuesday warned that parechovirus is spreading in multiple states and can be life-threatening for young infants.

The illness can cause fever, delirium, seizures, and other sepsis-like symptoms in children infected.

This week's warning came after the death of a newborn last month.

"This was not even on my radar," mom Kat DeLancy told KOLD after the death of her son Ronan.

"I mean I was worried about COVID. I was worried about every other virus that I've ever heard of and never heard of this."

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DeLancy told News12 it started with baby Ronan being irritable, with redness on his chest and loss of appetite when he was less than two weeks old.

His oxygen saturation levels dropped and shortly afterward he started having seizures and hospitalized.

After a lot of tests and procedures, the doctors diagnosed him with parechovirus.

"They actually said at one time he will recover and he will leave the hospital," said a heartbroken DeLancy.

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Sadly, Ronan dies at 34 days old but his parents said their final moment with him was miraculous.

"An hour before he passed away, he opened his eyes and we lost it," DeLancy told News12.

The couple has said that this last minute with Ronan is what has kept them going to make everyone aware of this rare virus and to fight for more testing.

Ronan was being tested at Yale. However, most pediatricians aren't testing, an expert has warned.

Dr Andrew Wong with Hartford Healthcare in Westport explained: "Even if it's diagnosed 100 times a year, the reality is that it's 100 times more prevalent." 

Dr Wong says autopsies have shown the virus could be confused with sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS.

"We need to consider it as a high likelihood illness for anybody especially children for under 5 years of age if they had a fever, rash, irritability, they should be checked for parechovirus or enterovirus," Dr Wong told News12.

"So, it's something that we're changing our protocols in." 

AVOID CROWDED AREAS

Wong is encouraging parents to be careful around crowded public swimming pools and places where there are a lot of children in one area. 

Kat and Mitch DeLancy are already getting responses from state legislators who want to help, they say. 

The couple also has a website called Research for Ronan that they hope is shared with all parents and pediatricians.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there is no specific treatment for parechovirus but a health management strategy can be established for children once diagnosed.

Typically the CDC logs less than 50 cases a year in the US.

Experts say that older children will only experience a mild illness for the most part.

Most may remain completely asymptomatic and feel nothing at all.

Yet there have been reported cases in children as old as eight years old who have suffered fevers, rash, blurred vision, trouble walking, headaches, and confusion/altered mental status.

Most children who catch the virus will be under five years old.

"Children are infected by the time they start kindergarten," the CDC states

It is most dangerous for children under three months old, especially newborns.

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"It's important in the first months of life to keep your baby away from anyone who is sick," Dr. Thomas Murray from Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital told WNTH.

The CDC urged pediatricians to test for the virus if infants are experiencing unexplained fever, sepsis-like syndrome, seizures, or meningitis.

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