12% of Assessed Children In China Found Infected With Coronavirus

While the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has been responsible for about 9,000 fatalities in 170 countries, there is a void of data regarding the epidemiologic characteristics and clinical features of infected children.

A review published in NEJM on March 18, 2020, of 72,314 cases confirmed by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, showed that less than 1 percent of the cases were in children younger than 10 years of age during 2020.

In order to determine the spectrum of disease in children, a team of researchers evaluated children infected with SARS-CoV-2 and treated at the Wuhan Children’s Hospital, the only center assigned by China’s central government for treating infected children in that province.

Both symptomatic and asymptomatic children with known contact with persons having confirmed or suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection were evaluated in this study. The clinical outcomes of these children were monitored up to March 8, 2020.

And, throat swabs were obtained for detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA by established methods.

Of the 1,391 children assessed and tested from January 28 through February 26, 2020, a total of 171 (12.3%) were confirmed to have SARS-CoV-2 infection. 

Fever was present in 41.5% of the children at any time during the illness. 

And the median age of the infected children was 6.7 years.

As of March 8, 2020, there was only 1 fatality reported. A 10-month-old child with intussusception had multi-organ failure and died 4 weeks after admission. 

A total of 21 patients were in stable condition in the general wards, and 149 have been discharged from the hospital.

This report describes a spectrum of illness from SARS-CoV-2 infection in children. In contrast with infected adults, most infected children appear to have a milder clinical course.

Furthermore, the determination of the transmission potential of these asymptomatic patients is important for guiding the development of measures to control the ongoing pandemic, concluded these researchers.

These researchers: Drs. Lu, J. Zhang, Y.Y. Li, and D. Liu and Drs. Shen, Xu, and Wong contributed equally to this letter and did not disclose conflicts of interest.

SARS-CoV-2 outbreak news published by Coronavirus Today.