Covid-19 infection is not always kind to children and teens. It is true that mild forms are more common among young people, but severe cases are not as rare as we initially imagined. To clarify this is an international study conducted in 10 countries, including Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States. The results were published in the JAMA Network Open journal.
The objectives of the study
The study involved 3,200 children who were seen in the emergency room and who tested positive for the Sars-CoV-2 virus. The aim of the researchers was to understand how often the children visited in the emergency wards for Covid-19 actually had serious complications, such as myocarditis, neurological problems, respiratory or infectious disorders. Another goal was to understand what the risk factors were.
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The results
Well, the results showed that nearly a quarter of the children seen in emergency departments (735 in total, 23%) required hospitalization, four died and 3% (107 in total) reported serious outcomes within two. weeks after admission. The latter, in practice, ended up in intensive care and received respiratory support. “It’s something we need to keep in mind when immunizing our children,” she comments Stuart Dalziel, author of the study affiliated with the University of Auckland. “We are immunizing our children to actually protect them from the severe outcomes of Covid-19,” he adds, and not to protect adults.
The study found that the children most at risk were those with symptoms for 4 to 7 days, those over the age of 5, and those with pre-existing medical conditions.
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“There is a perception that Covid-19 is just a very mild infection in children,” Dalziel says. “However, as the pandemic progresses, we are seeing more children infected and hospitalized around the world,” he adds. “There is certainly some benefit to adults from vaccinating children, but I think what we forget with this discussion is that vaccines also protect children,” he adds.
And give
Data in hand. “If we look at the United States, there are 8,700,000 children diagnosed with Covid and of these 747 have died, so it means that one in 11,000 children who contract Covid is likely to die and we know that vaccinations give us more. 90% protection against hospitalization, against serious consequences and against death “, specifies the scientist.
The researchers also found that the conditions of the children discharged from the emergency room after the first visit hardly worsened afterwards. “Fortunately, the risk of developing serious diseases in children with Covid-19 discharged from the emergency room is very low”, confirms Todd Florin dell’Ann & Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, another author of the study.
“Our findings can reassure parents and doctors that children are being managed fairly well and also provide important information on which children may be at particular risk for severe outcomes.”
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The study comes at a crucial stage of the pandemic, given the increasing number of children infected with the Sars-CoV-2 virus. “With emergency departments around the world seeing a large influx of patients from the Covid-19 pandemic, this study can help address the surge by providing a risk estimate among pediatric Covid-19 patients screened in an emergency room, “he says Nathan Kuppermann of the University of California Davis Medical Center and co-lead on the study.