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The death of five children and an unusual group of more than 100 cases of hepatitis in young children in the United States are under investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency said on Friday.

The CDC said it was examining cases involving 109 children in 25 states and territories with the disease the agency calls “hepatitis of unknown origin.”

Assistant director of infectious diseases at the CDC, Dr. Jay Butler said most of the children make a full recovery. But more than 90 percent were hospitalized, 14 percent received liver transplants, and more than half said they had adenovirus infections.

CDC and overseas experts are investigating whether it is a type of adenovirusA common virus that causes intestinal symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea may be a factor in these cases. However, the agency did not identify a cause or a common link between all of the lawsuits and warned against drawing conclusions.

Dr. Butler described it as an “evolving situation” in a news briefing Friday. He then added, “Despite the potential increase in cases we are reporting today, it is important to remember that severe hepatitis in children is rare.”

Hepatitis and liver failure are unusual events in young children, especially healthy children, and the actual number of hepatitis cases in the United States so far is no greater than the number usually seen.

The agency did not elaborate on the children who died or where these deaths occurred.

The UK is investigating a much larger number of young children – more than 160 cases – who have recently been reported to have or have had hepatitis.

Hepatitis, a liver infection, typically occurs in adults and can be caused by viruses that respond to treatment with medications, or by alcoholism, certain medications, or autoimmune conditions. Symptoms include yellowing of the skin and eyes, nausea and abdominal pain.

Dr. Butler also said that so far there has been no evidence that neither a Covid-19 infection nor a Covid vaccine has been linked to US cases. The World Health Organization said this week that “the vast majority” of children were not vaccinated in the cases it examined.

The alarm began two weeks ago when the CDC issued an alert citing nine cases of hepatitis among young children in Alabama that began last fall. All had evidence of adenovirus infection. Their average age was 2 years.

Dr. Butler said the CDC’s problem is to determine whether the adenovirus is a cause or an innocent bystander. Doctors do not normally test children for adenovirus infections – which is not a notifiable disease in the United States – making the causes and effects difficult to decipher. He urged doctors to consider testing for adenovirus if children are sick with certain symptoms.

It is not known how likely the nine children tested at random are to be infected with adenovirus. The virus is also seasonal, and the fall and winter seasons when Alabama children are sick is adenovirus season.

Complicating the situation further is that when the children were evaluated, the amount of virus, if found, was very low.

Dr. “We are working hard to determine the cause,” Butler said. He said the search was difficult, as hepatitis in children remains a “rare occurrence.”

Dr. Other possibilities include environmental exposures, including exposure to animals or an immune reaction along with a response to an adenovirus, Butler said.

“We’re building a wide network,” he said.