Carpet Cleaners and Kawasaki Disease

Kawasaki Disease is an illness that affects only children. It's also known as Kawasaki syndrome or mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome. It and acute rheumatic fever are the two leading causes of heart disease in children in the United States.

It is generally categorized as a childhood immune system disease that causes the inflammation of blood vessels through the body and if untreated can indeed affect the heart.

About 80 percent of the people with Kawasaki Disease are under age five and children over the age eight or nine are rarely affected. The disease occurs more often among boys (over 60 percent) and among those of Asian ancestry.

Over 4,000 cases of Kawasaki Disease are being diagnosed annually in the United States or about 15 out of 100,000 children under the age of 5... Less than 1 percent of those who get it die.

A possible connection between Kawasaki Disease and carpet cleaning was first reported in a case-control study published in the renowned medical journal Lancet. Researchers investigating an out break of Kawasaki Disease in the Denver, Colorado area found that 11 out of the 23 children affected (48%) were living in homes where the carpets had been shampooed within 30 days of the onset of the symptoms.

Ten of these children had played on the carpets two hours after they had been shampooed. In the control group (those who did not have the disease), only nine of 86 families (10%) had also shampooed carpets within 30 days.

Despite the results of this study, researchers have not been able to provide more convincing evidence of a direct link between carpet cleaners and Kawasaki Disease. Scientists who've studied it think the evidence strongly suggests it's caused by an infectious agent such as a virus. And since it is very rare for more than one child in a family to develop Kawasaki Disease a direct link to an environmental act in the home being the cause is questionable.

Though the evidence of the direct relationship between Kawasaki Disease and carpet cleaners is not conclusive, we should be more careful when using carpet cleaners in our homes. It is highly recommended that children stay out of the house for at least four hours after carpets have been cleaned by any method.