Long COVID symptoms and duration in SARS-CoV-2 positive children

BACKGROUND

Children have a mild course of acute COVID-19 in most of the cases. However, a few non-controlled studies on children present an evaluation of long-term recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Mostly, the studies were conducted on a small sample size with children aged between 0-17 years. 

AIM

The study aimed to evaluate symptoms and duration of 'long COVID' in children. 

METHODS AND DATA COLLECTION

Data collection was done through a nationwide cohort study with 37,522 RT-PCR verified SARS-CoV-2 infected children, aged between 0-17 years (response rate 44.9%). Further, the study also had a group of 78,037 children as control (response rate 21.3%). An electronic questionnaire was used to collect data.

RESULT

It was obtained that symptoms lasting > 4 weeks were common among both SARS-CoV-2 children and controls. However, SARS-CoV-2 infected children with the age of 6-17 years reported symptoms more frequently than the control group (percent difference 0.8%). 

The most reported symptoms among pre-school children were 

• Fatigue Risk Difference (RD) 0.05 (CI 0.04-0.06)

• Loss of smell RD 0.01 (CI 0.01-0.01)

• Loss of taste RD 0.01 (CI 0.01-0.02) 

• Muscle weakness RD 0.01 (CI 0.00-0.01)

However, in school children, respiratory problems RD 0.03 (CI 0.03-0.04), dizziness RD 0.02 (CI 0.02-0.03), chest pain RD 0.01 (CI 0.01-0.01) were also observed along with the above-mentioned symptoms. 

Furthermore, children in the control group experienced significantly more concentration difficulties, headache, muscle and joint pain, cough, nausea, diarrhea and fever than SARS-CoV-2 infected. 

CONCLUSION

In most of the cases, 'long COVID' symptoms resolve in children within 1-5 months. Therefore, it can be interpreted that long COVID in children is rare and mainly of short duration.

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