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Symptoms of long-term COVID are not common in children, according to a Swiss study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on July 15.
Long COVID, also known as long-distance COVID or post-acute COVID-19, is a condition in which people experience persistent or new symptoms four weeks or more after being first infected with the CCP virus, that causes COVID-19 disease. The disease can occur in people who have had severe or mild COVID-19 illness or after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
La Ciao Corona, a longitudinal cohort study, found “a low prevalence of symptoms consistent with long COVID in a cohort of randomly selected children” in Switzerland six months after a SARS-CoV antibody or serology test. 2.
“This study reports the distribution of symptoms consistent with long COVID at the population level; it did not capture serious SARS-CoV-2 infections because they are rare in children, ”the study authors wrote. SARS-CoV-2 is the scientific name for the CCP virus.
Several thousand pupils aged 6 to 16 from 55 schools in the Zurich district volunteered to have their blood drawn for three-phase serological tests between June 2020 and April 2021. Parents have also been asked to report symptoms that have lasted at least four weeks or persisted for more than 12 weeks since October 2020 in an online questionnaire.
Switzerland kept schools open during the pandemic last year, except from March 16 to May 10, when the country went into lockdown in the first wave. The Swiss authorities did not see children as the main drivers of the virus and only put in place preventive measures such as hand hygiene, physical distancing and the wearing of masks for children 12 years and older.
Of the 2,503 students, with a median age of 11, who underwent serological testing in October or November, only 1,355 were included in the study. Those who were excluded included 238 students who tested negative for antibodies but later became positive, 292 students who were not retested in March or April 2021, and 618 who did not provide information about their symptoms.
The researchers then compared the students who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (seropositive) with those who tested negative (seronegative).
Of the 109 HIV-positive children, 9 percent had at least one symptom beyond four weeks and 4 percent had at least one symptom for more than 12 weeks, compared with 10 percent and two percent, respectively, of 1 246 who were HIV negative.
Among HIV-positive children, fatigue, difficulty concentrating and the need to sleep more were “the symptoms most frequently reported lasting more than 12 weeks”. In addition, “none of the HIV-positive children reported hospitalization after October 2020”.
Some of the limitations of the study include the small number of children who test positive for antibodies, reports from parents about their child’s symptoms, and “possible misclassification of some children with false HIV-positive results.”
The findings add to research to understand the frequency and severity of long-term COVID in children, as the results of previous studies were “primarily limited to selected populations without control groups, making it difficult to estimate overall prevalence and burden in a general pediatric population, ”according to the study.
In another study published as a pre-publication in May, researchers who had tracked rates of COVID-19 infection among students in grades 8 to 12 in East Saxony, Germany, surveyed 1 560 students in March and April 2021 to “better understand the symptoms of COVID-19 long in adolescents and to distinguish symptoms associated with infection from symptoms associated with a pandemic.” “
They found “no statistical difference comparing reported symptoms” between 188 HIV-positive students and 1365 HIV-negative students, suggesting that the long COVID may be “less common than previously thought and highlighting the impact of associated symptoms to the pandemic on the well-being and mental health of young adolescents.
While recent studies suggest long-lasting COVID is rare for children on average, there is still a lot to be learned about the disease for those affected. There is currently no clear clinical definition of long COVID in children, making it difficult for doctors to differentiate between long COVID and other conditions and who is most at risk.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the following symptoms are commonly reported in people with long-term COVID: difficulty breathing, fatigue, brain fog, cough, symptoms that are worse after physical or mental activities, chest or stomach pain, headache head, heart palpitations, fever, mood changes, change in smell or taste, problems sleeping, dizziness, mood changes, rash, changes in menstrual cycle, muscle or joint pain, diarrhea or tingling sensation .
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