Mathias Fernandez Baião Wagner is 2 years old and is, nowadays, a totally different child than he was a year ago. He plays, runs and is very active. It is growing and gaining weight. These are some of the visible signs of life change after the liver transplant, which took place in January 2020, and which marked the resumption of the Liver Transplantation Service at Pequeno Príncipe Hospital.

In his first days of life, his yellowish color revealed liver problems, a diagnosis confirmed 30 days later in a hospital in Curitiba. He then underwent surgery in an attempt to correct this situation. The procedure, however, did not bring the expected result and the boy became a candidate for liver transplantation. Mathias received part of the liver from his father, Vitor Fernando Wagner, 19 years old.

The success of the procedures in 2020 is the result of the resumption of the service, which completed a year in January. And this is one of the subjects of the first edition of the Pequeno Príncipe News in 2021, that also presents an article about a research project in which is being investigated whether susceptibility to severe COVID-19 condition could be a new rare disease that affects the immune system.

“We already know that 3.5% of patients who develop severe forms of COVID-19 may have mutations in genes that affect their immune response,” explains researcher at the Pelé Pequeno Príncipe Research Institute, Carolina Prando, who is part of a consortium of scientists investigating the topic, the COVID Human Genetic Effort.

The third article of Pequeno Príncipe News, in this turn, shows that the number of children infected with the coronavirus had an explosion in Curitiba from the month of October, which was reflected in the overall numbers of care registered at the Hospital. There was also a change in the profile of infected patients. At the beginning, most boys and girls with a positive diagnosis had some comorbidity, which has not been registered in recent months.

Click here and read the full-length articles in the first edition of the Pequeno Príncipe News in 2021.