One in ten children have persistent symptoms of COVID

Doctors have called prolonged COVID, long COVID, or post-COV syndrome for conditions in organs that go beyond the respiratory system and which are typical of the systemic inflammatory picture that causes SARS-CoV-2 in the body, which persists. in time even after the person receives epidemiological discharge.

Although the terminology is not yet defined, some authors already speak of “post-acute COVID”, when symptoms persist beyond three to four weeks, and “chronic COVID” when symptoms last more than 12 weeks.

Now, While children are often spared the worst impacts of the disease that puts the world on edge, the specter of the prolonged development of COVID-19 in children is forcing researchers to reconsider the cost of the pandemic for the very young. .

A recent survey conducted by the Israeli Ministry of Health and published by Jerusalem post realize About 11% of children had persistent symptoms after recovering from COVID-19.

However, That number has fallen to more than half over the months, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health’s investigation.

Serious illness from the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is more common in adults, but data is lacking on the impact of the virus on young people, who are much less prone to severe complications, the ministry said.

Experts from the Israeli government conducted a telephone survey in June of 13,834 parents of children aged three to 18 who had recovered from COVID-19, and He asked if their children had any lingering symptoms, including breathing problems, lethargy, and loss of smell and taste.

The ministry said 11.2% of the children showed symptoms after their recovery. And they found the figure to drop to between 1.8% and 4.6% within six months of acute illness.

As they revealed, the older children suffered more.

Estimates of the duration of illness in children vary widely. Researchers say determining this is crucial, as decisions about closing schools and launching the vaccine may depend on the risk the virus poses to children. Getting solid numbers is “very, very important,” says Pia Hardelid, a child health epidemiologist at University College London.

Pediatrician Danilo Buonsenso, from Gemelli University Hospital in Rome, led the first attempt to quantify prolonged COVID in children. Together with their colleagues, they interviewed 129 children aged 6 to 16, who were diagnosed with COVID-19 between March and November 2020. In their research, they reported that more than a third had one or two persistent symptoms. for four years. months or more after infection, and another quarter had three or more symptoms. “Insomnia, fatigue, muscle aches and persistent cold-type complaints were common, a pattern similar to that seen in adults with prolonged COVID. Even children who had mild initial symptoms, or who were asymptomatic, were not spared from these lasting effects. “, says common sense.

The published results sparked a flood of emails and calls from anxious parents. “It was as if we opened the door and everyone, most of them the same parents, started asking new questions about their children’s illnesses,” he said. The hospital now has a weekly outpatient clinic to meet this demand.

The reported numbers are not as high as those for adults. Data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), for example, shows that around 25% of people aged 35 to 69 had symptoms at five weeks. Corn the numbers sounded the alarm again, on the assumption that severe COVID-19 in children is much rarer than in adults and it was therefore assumed that most children would be spared the impacts of a Prolonged COVID.

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