Australia has recorded no cases this year of the Kawasaki-like syndrome seen in children with COVID-19 despite a rise in infection with the current Delta wave, a leading paediatric infectious diseases specialist says.  

Professor David Burgner, from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, co-wrote Australia’s first advice on the syndrome, which has been dubbed paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 (PIMS-TS).  

Affected children develop severe inflammation, commonly requiring ICU admission, weeks after apparently recovering from COVID-19.  

Since September 2020, there have been four confirmed cases and two probable cases, and none this year, Professor Burgner says.