Their symptoms may be less severe, but a study shows that nearly six percent of children with COVID-19 still report symptoms three months later.
The eight-country study included 1,884 children age 17 and younger who went to an emergency room with COVID-19 and were followed for 90 days.
Long-term COVID-19 was found in nearly 10 percent of children who were admitted to the hospital and five percent of children who were seen in an emergency department and discharged.
Read more: Long-term COVID rare among children, but experts call for more research
The study involved the University of Calgary School of Medicine, the University of California, Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento, California, Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
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It was peer-reviewed and published in JAMA Network Open on Friday.
The study says long-term COVID is more likely in children 14 and older who have spent time in hospital with more severe symptoms.
“We found that in some children, illness from COVID-19 was associated with reporting persistent symptoms after three months,” said lead researcher Steven Friedman, MD, a pediatric emergency medicine physician and clinician-scientist at the Cummings School of Medicine.
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“Our results suggest that appropriate guidance and follow-up are needed, especially for children at high risk of prolonged COVID.”
The most commonly reported persistent symptoms in children are fatigue or weakness, cough, difficulty breathing, or shortness of breath.
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The study focused on emergency department admissions rather than community or school settings because the researchers were able to draw on another pediatric pneumonia study that was already underway more than two years ago.
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“In the context of this emerging disease, there was a real sense of urgency for everyone to start research. So we actually had a really good infrastructure to quickly build on,” said Dr. Anna Funk, an infectious disease immunologist and study co-principal investigator at the Cummings School of Medicine.
“They weren’t necessarily admitted to the hospital and not all of them came as an emergency.” But they came to be tested, which was perhaps the testing center or the easiest place to test at four in the morning,” she added.
Funk said if the study had included children with milder cases outside the emergency room, the long-term rate would likely have been slightly lower.
Of the patients who have been followed up, she said the majority are quite young. The average age was three.
“We also found that children who were older, over 14, were also more likely to report these conditions after COVID.”
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The study was able to follow-up with 80 percent of patients by 90 days, but Funk thinks more research needs to be done to determine if the health problems are chronic.
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The study found that reported rates of persistent COVID in adults were significantly higher than those found in children.
“Unfortunately, there are no known therapies for prolonged COVID in children, and more research is needed in this area,” said Dr. Todd Florin of Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
“However, if symptoms are significant, symptom-directed treatment is most important. Multidisciplinary care is warranted if symptoms affect quality of life.
Read more: Children can be carriers of COVID-19, but it’s very rare, experts say
Funk said one thing parents can take from the results is that vaccinations are something to seriously consider.
“Six percent is still one in 20 children and that may worry some people when they are considering vaccinating their children,” she said.
“We know that vaccines are known to reduce severe disease, so this would seem like a good intervention to possibly reduce post-COVID conditions in children.”
© 2022 The Canadian Press
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