Kawasaki disease is an autoimmune illness that commonly affects children from infancy to five years old. Blood vessels in the body become inflamed and cause a persistent fever along with rashes, red eyes, lips and tongue, swollen hands and feet with peeling skin. The disease may cause damage to the coronary arteries and if left untreated, it will result in serious, sometimes fatal, heart problems during early adulthood.   

The study was led by Chief and Professor of Pediatrics Jane Burns, who is also a specialist in Kawasaki disease.

A decade ago, Burns first started to examine the idea of wind currents triggering the disease with researcher Dan Cayan, who is a part of the Climate Atmosphere Science and Physical Oceanography Division of  the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“There have been all sorts of theories, from cleaning your carpets that might release some kind of germ into the air, to human-to-human transmission, to so on and so forth,” Cayan said. “One of the clues that led us to believe there was an environmental trigger was that it’s quite seasonal.”

Research has shown that the disease is most active from November until March. In addition, during April 1979, May 1982 and March 1986 — the three times when the disease reached its highest peaks in Japan — there was a significant northwestern wind from central Asia blowing across the country.

A low amount of cases were reported when currents came from the south. The strength of the wind also affects the amount of cases. Winds from the northwest are strongest during the winter. During the other seasons, the current is often weaker or in another direction.

Currently, the scientists are investigating two hypotheses regarding why the relationship between Kawasaki disease and northwestern winds exists. One is that the wind carries an infectious agent. The other is that pollutants in the wind may play a significant role in causing swells of the illness.

“There may be some aircraft sampling and true biological germ hunting that will try to determine whether there are germs that are residing on these air currents that occur high above the earth’s surface that could be transported,” Cayan said. “There will be more focused work to try and understand whether the biology, if it is found, has some kind of biological connection to what they find in Kawasaki
patients.”