GPT and hepatitis A virus infection: First, we used ALT to identify patients with hepatitis as it is more liver-specific, thus excluding patients presenting only with AST > 500 U/L.14 Second, we excluded children aged <6 months from our analysis who present with unique etiologies of severe hepatitis, such as birth asphyxia/hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, congenital infections, congenital malformations, multisystemic disease, sepsis, and postsurgical causes.