CDC shares new info on potential treatments for COVID-related illness in kids

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shared some news about promising treatments for the mysterious illness affecting children that is believed to be linked to the coronavirus.

In a worldwide call for doctors on Tuesday, the CDC outlined the dangers and possible treatments for what it is calling multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), which has been found in at least 24 states, including 147 suspected cases in New York City.

The rare illness is thought to develop about four weeks after exposure to COVID-19, with many of the children having never shown any coronavirus symptoms, according to the CDC.

Effects of the illness include fever, rash and gastrointestinal symptoms caused by an abnormal immune response to the coronavirus.

Hospitals have had some success treating MIS-C with immunotherapy and steroids used to lessen the overactive immune response, according to the CDC.

Doctors at Ochsner Hospital for Children in Jefferson, Louisiana, believe that treatment helped save the life of Juliet Daly, 12, who went into cardiac arrest with MIS-C and spent four days on a ventilator after doctors revived her with two minutes of CPR.

She is now out of the hospital with no signs of permanent heart damage after responding to treatment.

"I died and came back," she told The Associated Press.

"She came in really near death, and within a matter of days we were able to get her off the ventilator breathing on her own, come off all IV medications and get her out of the hospital within 10 days," Ochsner Hospital's Dr. Jake Kleinmahon told Kristen Dahlgren on TODAY Wednesday. "It was really quite dramatic, and I think if she hadn't received such great care from all the team members here, her outcome may be different."

The illness most recently is believed to have claimed the life of Baltimore teen Daryana Dyson, 15, who died May 16 after experiencing a rash and stomach pain that resulted in her being being taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital on Mother's Day.

Daryana, who tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, is one of four children in the U.S. to die from MIS-C.

"People need to really understand that this kills people," Daryana's mother, Kandace Knight, told NBC News. "This hurts people, this hurts people in ways that they never gonna get to come back from."