Long COVID and children: The unseen casualties of COVID-19

 Since children appear to be less at risk of severe COVID-19 than adults, those who do develop the disease may not receive as much attention from researchers and the media. Yet some of these children have become “long haulers” who experience symptoms months after they first contracted SARS-CoV-2.

Some studies have argued that children have a lower riskTrusted Source of developing severe COVID-19 — the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 — than adults.

Reports indicate that, in most cases, children who contract the new coronavirus develop mild-to-moderate symptomsTrusted Source or remain asymptomatic.

However, in some extreme cases, they may develop multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C)Trusted Source or pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS), as some experts refer to it.

According to existing data, MIS-C/PIMS can become apparent at 2–6 weeks after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, and some of the symptoms that can accompany it include:

• persistent fever
• gastrointestinal symptoms
• rashes or pink eye (conjunctivitis)
• headaches

In most cases of COVID-19 in children, symptoms should typically improve and then disappear altogether after a couple of weeks from symptom onset. Yet some children experience ongoing symptoms weeks or even months after their initial illness — a phenomenon commonly referred to as “long COVID.”

How do ongoing symptoms of COVID-19 actually impact the day-to-day lives and well-being of the children and adolescents who experience them?

To answer this and many other questions, Medical News Today spoke to the parents of children and teens with long COVID.*

In this Special Feature, we present, at length, the stories of four parents whose children still experience debilitating symptoms. These parents spoke to us about the difficult journey towards securing an accurate diagnosis, and the often fruitless search for formal support.

For an informed medical perspective on long COVID, MNT sought the expertise of Dr. Amanda Morrow, rehabilitation physician, and Dr. Laura Malone, neurologist — both from the Kennedy Krieger Institute, a Johns Hopkins affiliate in Baltimore, MD.

Dr. Morrow is an assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Malone is also an assistant professor of Neurology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Drs. Morrow and Malone offered MNT joint comments about long COVID in children.

How many children are long haulers?

There are limited comprehensive data about children with long-lasting symptoms of COVID-19, so it can be difficult to say just how common this phenomenon is among the under 18s.

The most detailed sets of data, for the time being, have been collected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the United Kingdom.

According to updated experimental estimates published by the ONS in January 2021, around 12.9% of children aged 2–11 years, 14.5% of those aged 12–16 years, and 17.1% of teenagers and young adults aged 17–24 years still had COVID-19 symptoms at 5 weeks after the initial onset.

A study headed by researchers from the Department of Woman and Child Health and Public Health at the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS in Rome, Italy, also suggests that long COVID may be more common in children than public health experts had expected.

The study — as yet unpublished and not peer reviewed, shared on the preprint platform medRxiv — analyzed the health data of a cohort of 129 children diagnosed with COVID-19 between March and November 2020 in Italy.

Of these, 52.7% reported experiencing at least one symptom of COVID-19 at 120 days (approximately 4 months) or more after the initial diagnosis.

In a recent webinar for The BMJ, Dr. Elizabeth Whittaker — senior clinical lecturer in pediatric infectious diseases and immunology at Imperial College London in the U.K. — outlines the wide array of symptoms children with long COVID can experience.

She cites data from the Long Covid Kids study — an independent research endeavor spearheaded by the Long Covid Kids advocacy group — which indicate that, in children, long COVID symptoms can include:

• sore throat
• joint pain
• fatigue
• headaches
• chest pain
• gastrointestinal problems
• nausea
• mood swings
• dizziness
• rashes

In the conclusion of her talk, Dr. Whittaker notes that, while “children experience less severe disease than adults,” it is “crucial to support recovery for those who do experience significant disease,” such as long COVID and PIMS.

Source: Medical News Today