Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/25
By: Chen Wei-ting and S.C. Chang
Taipei, April 25 (CNA) A four-year-old child who suddenly developed fever and rash when only
NTU Hospital. (CNA file photo)
two months old was confirmed a year later to have been hit with a rare autoinflammatory disease called cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome (CAPS), the first such case in Taiwan.
The child, whose disease was confirmed by genetic testing, was cured soon after the correct diagnosis was made, said Yang Yao-hsu (楊曜旭), a pediatrician at National Taiwan University Hospital.
The disease usually hits children, causing inflammation in organs, nervous system, and joints. In serious cases, a patient may suffer fever or chills, rash, joint pain, eye-redness, deafness and fatigue. If it worsens, it can be life-threatening.
Yang said the rare disease strikes about one in one million and because of its rarity, doctors often are not vigilant enough to detect it, leaving patients to seek diagnoses from one hospital department to another without getting a correct one. [FULL STORY]
