MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Nicklaus Children’s Hospital has announced a specialized unit for the treatment of children with multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), a disorder that is affecting young people during the coronavirus pandemic. “Part of this is we don’t have a lot of information,” said Michael Leoncio, a pediatric ICU physician at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. “We are seeing cases, luckily they’re few they’re rare and most of them are doing well.”Nicklaus Children’s Hospital says its MIS-C pod includes special barriers to prevent cross-contamination. A look inside @Nicklaus4Kids new Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome unit within the PICU. Love, president and CEO of Nicklaus Children’s Health System, the hospital’s parent organization.

Doctors at Holtz Children’s Hospital in Allappattah, at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital near Coral Gables and at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood are sounding the alarm. The pediatricians believe MIS-C is a spectrum of disorders defined by how some children’s immune systems are responding to the coronavirus. According to Jennifer Piedra, a spokeswoman for the Jackson Health System, Holtz Children’s Hospital has two confirmed cases of the rare and treatable disease. Before pediatricians identified the pattern, some children were initially misdiagnosed as Kawasaki disease cases. “The gastrointestinal symptoms are more than in Kawasaki, they get significant abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea -- which usually is not as prominent in Kawasaki," Laufer said.