Immunity and COVID

COVID-19 has affected all segments of people and all age groups. With the emerging delta-variant is affecting children more in some places of the world, so researchers are still on the way to find an effective vaccine especially designed or the young population of the world. Though many countries have approved some vaccines for emergency use in children, yet some countries are only vaccinating children in the age group of 12 years and above and who are suffering from some critical health issues and still the debate regarding the efficacy of vaccines among children is a matter of debate.

Children being affected by COVID-19, are showing symptoms such as headache, fatigue and heart palpitations though they hardly showed any initial COVID-19 symptoms. Researchers are of say that a conclusion need to be drawn and preventive measures should be strengthened and studies are done to identify the risk factors which are making children more vulnerable to this new variant.

Studies among children have shown that even after recovering from COVID-19 infection one-third had one or two lingering symptoms, while one-quarter had three or more symptoms for four months or more after infection. Symptoms like insomnia, fatigue, muscle pain and persistent cold-like complaints were similar to adults who suffered for a long time with COVID-19 infection. Also, children with mild symptoms showed these long term side effects.

Data from the UK Office of National Statistics 9.8% of children aged 2-11 and 13% aged between 12-16 years who were infected with COVID-19, showed a minimum of one lingering symptom even after 5 weeks after testing positive. In a report from a hospital in Russia post-COVID-19, it was observed that one-quarter of children even after being discharged from the hospital had lingering symptoms for more than 5 months.

These observations are making the researchers worry about the fact that whatever may be the severity rate of the disease among children, long term lingering symptoms were observed in them and this was needed to be addressed.

Some studies in England showed that about 4.6% of children with SARS-CoV-2 infection had lingering symptoms which lasted for more than 4 weeks. Another study reflected among school children who were infected 4.4% had headaches, fatigue and loss of smell and in about 1.6% these symptoms remained even after 8 weeks.

Other researchers are of the view that the long term and lingering symptoms such as fatigue, headache, difficulty concentrating and insomnia could also be due to the stress created due to school closures, loss of family members due to COVID-19 infection, financial crisis, food and hygiene concerns, which indirectly makes them more vulnerable for the infection

Therefore researchers are of the view that proper and in-depth study is needed to address which children are most at risk and also if some biological markers could be identified so as to open a way to newer treatments and better management of the signs of chronic inflammation among children after the infection.

References:

1. Lewis D. Long COVID and kids: scientists race to find answers: Nature; 2021 [updated 14-July-21; cited 2021 27-Sep-21]. Available from: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01935-7.