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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Children and Covid-19

by

1932 days ago
20200326

COVID-19 refers to the dis­ease caused by the nov­el Coro­n­avirus. It is an acronym for COro­na VIrus Dis­ease 2019 as named by the WHO. The full name of the coro­na virus is SARS-CoV-2 or Se­vere Acute Res­pi­ra­to­ry Syn­drome Coro­n­avirus type2. It is a new virus (nov­el) and there­fore there are many unan­swered ques­tions about it and the dis­ease that it caus­es. But every­day there are new dis­cov­er­ies and bet­ter un­der­stand­ing that will en­able us to deal with it.

How does COVID-19 af­fect chil­dren dif­fer­ent­ly?

For­tu­nate­ly, the da­ta from Chi­na so far shows that chil­dren un­der 15 years of age gen­er­al­ly get mild dis­ease, some of them even show­ing no symp­toms (asymp­to­matic) at all but still test­ing pos­i­tive for the coro­n­avirus. Out of 72,000 cas­es re­port­ed by the Chi­nese CDC (Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol ), less than 1 per­cent of the cas­es were in chil­dren younger than 10 years of age. Fur­ther eval­u­a­tion of 1400 cas­es of chil­dren in a Wuhan Hos­pi­tal showed that on­ly 42% had FEVER with the oth­er 2 com­mon clin­i­cal fea­tures be­ing COUGH (49%) and a RED THROAT (46%). On­ly 3 chil­dren re­quired In­ten­sive Care: one had an un­der­ly­ing kid­ney con­di­tion (hy­dronephro­sis), one had a blood can­cer (leukemia) and one had a sur­gi­cal com­pli­ca­tion (in­tus­sus­cep­tion), which was the on­ly re­port­ed death. Thus in con­trast with in­fect­ed adults, most in­fect­ed chil­dren ap­pear to have a milder clin­i­cal course. As to why chil­dren have milder dis­ease is un­known and sev­er­al the­o­ries have been pro­posed . The great con­cern with chil­dren is their trans­mis­sion po­ten­tial, pass­ing the dis­ease un­to oth­er chil­dren, par­ents and most im­por­tant­ly their grand­par­ents.

Which chil­dren are more at risk?

Even though the ma­jor­i­ty of chil­dren are ex­pect­ed to cope well with COVID-19, there are cer­tain groups which can be a con­cern. These are chil­dren with un­der­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tions such as Asth­ma, Heart con­di­tions, Cere­bral Pal­sy, Can­cer cas­es re­ceiv­ing treat­ment and any con­di­tion that weak­ens the body’s abil­i­ty to fight dis­ease. It is im­por­tant that these chil­dren avoid con­tact with oth­er chil­dren and prac­tice good per­son­al hy­giene. Stay home and fre­quent hand wash­ing.

When is it a cold, in­fluen­z­er or COVID-19?

Res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es are very com­mon in chil­dren and there­fore it is dif­fi­cult to know which one has the com­mon cold, the “flu” (in­fluen­za) or COVID-19. Gen­er­al­ly, a cold case has more run­ny nose and sneez­ing symp­toms while In­fluen­za is char­ac­ter­ized by high fever and body aches and pains. As stat­ed pre­vi­ous­ly, COVID- 19 can cause a FEVER, COUGH and a RED THROAT. How­ev­er, be­cause of milder dis­ease, it is dif­fi­cult to know for sure. But as the dis­ease be­comes more com­mon in the pop­u­la­tion, it would be wise to as­sume the pos­si­bil­i­ty of COVID-19 in­fec­tion in all chil­dren with res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms and take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions.

So when should sick chil­dren vis­it the doc­tor?

It is wise to avoid un­nec­es­sary ex­po­sure to hos­pi­tals, doc­tor’s of­fices, health cen­ters dur­ing these un­cer­tain times. But if your child is un­well and par­ents are con­cerned, then it may be nec­es­sary. Some ex­am­ples of nec­es­sary vis­its in­clude: All ba­bies less than three months with poor feed­ing and high fever, vom­it­ing and /or di­ar­rhea with de­hy­dra­tion man­i­fest­ing as de­creased urine pro­duc­tion, wheez­ing that leads to de­creased feed­ing or af­fects sleep, Fever last­ing for more than three days. If un­sure, con­sult your Doc­tor.

My child has asth­ma, al­ler­gies. What can I do?

This is not a good time for your al­ler­gies to start act­ing up with symp­toms of low grade fever, snif­fles, sore throat etc or for your child to start wheez­ing, which may be due to the Sa­hara dust but of course, it is a cause for great con­cern and pos­si­ble vis­its to the Doc­tor. Thus, please con­trol your al­ler­gies with your reg­u­lar an­ti­his­t­a­mine med­ica­tions and re­li­gious­ly take your pre­ven­ta­tive asth­ma med­ica­tion. Keep your al­ler­gies and Asth­ma un­der con­trol.

Chil­dren as car­ri­ers- stop the spread

As men­tioned pre­vi­ous­ly, the biggest con­cern with chil­dren and this dis­ease is their role of act­ing as reser­voirs and trans­mit­ters of the dis­ease. Chil­dren are good at shar­ing their coughs and cold to oth­er chil­dren but most im­por­tant­ly to the vul­ner­a­ble old­er age group, grand­par­ents. From very young, they need to be taught to prac­tice good per­son­al hy­giene ( wash­ing hands, cov­er­ing their coughs and sneezes etc) and this is some­thing that the new gen­er­a­tion will have to adopt for the fu­ture.

Talk­ing to your child about COVID-19

The CDC.GOV has is­sued gen­er­al prin­ci­ples for talk­ing to chil­dren about COVID-19. These in­clude be­ing calm and re­as­sur­ing, and mak­ing your­self read­i­ly avail­able to an­swer all their ques­tions in an hon­est and ac­cu­rate way. How­ev­er, we do not have all the an­swers as yet. Try to avoid over­load with in­for­ma­tion from TV, on­line etc. This can lead to anx­i­ety and stress. This is al­so a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to teach chil­dren on how to re­duce the spread of germs with prop­er cov­er­ing of coughs and sneezes, hand-wash­ing habits etc.

The fu­ture

The fu­ture is not all doom and gloom and the younger gen­er­a­tion is rel­a­tive­ly pro­tect­ed from the se­vere ef­fects of this dis­ease. Al­so, every day or week there is new re­search and dis­cov­er­ies that may make this dis­ease more man­age­able and treat­able. For ex­am­ple, it is pos­si­ble that new treat­ments will be avail­able soon that can lim­it the sever­i­ty of the dis­ease, not a cure but treat­able. Al­so rapid test kits are be­ing de­vel­oped where one can test one­self and find out ear­ly on whether you are in­fect­ed or not and there­fore self iso­late or not. Vac­cine test­ing has al­ready start­ed but it will take many months be­fore it be­comes wide­ly avail­able.

Mean­while STAY HOME, prac­tice so­cial iso­la­tion, avoid con­gre­gat­ing , fre­quent hand-wash­ing (or use gel if no wa­ter is read­i­ly avail­able) and avoid touch­ing your faces. Keep the chil­dren busy at home and en­joy the Fam­i­ly time to­geth­er.

Dr Jose Nunez,

MBBS (UWI), MR­CPCH (UK)

Head of Pae­di­atric De­part­ment,

San Fer­nan­doTeach­ing Hos­pi­tal


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