The pandemic's impact on young people

A recent study sought to estimate the prevalence of long COVID symptoms in children who had or did not have a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection and to assess the associated factors.

The nationwide cross-sectional study in primary care was conducted in Israel and involved 3240 parents of children between 5 and 18 years of age, who completed an online questionnaire (11.9% response rate): 1148 children had contracted SARS-Cov2 and 2092 had no history of infection.

The primary outcome sought was the prevalence of long COVID symptoms in children with or without a history of infection.

The secondary outcomes were the factors associated with the presence of symptoms and failure to return to baseline health status in children with a history of infection, including the variables of sex, age, time since illness, symptomatic illness and vaccination status.

Long COVID in children: main results of the study conducted in Israel

Most symptoms in children after SARS-CoV-2 infection were prevalent in the older age group (12-18 years) compared to the younger age group (5-11 years).

Figure 2 highlights the rates of symptoms in children with a history of COVID-19 disease by comparing them between children aged 5-11 years and adolescents aged 12-18 years. Symptoms with insignificant differences between the age groups are marked with an asterisk (*).

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Long COVID symptoms were logically prevalent in children with previous infection:

However, some symptoms were more frequent in children without a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection, including:

This study suggests that the prevalence of long COVID symptoms in young people with a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection may be higher and more prevalent in adolescents than in young children. Some of the symptoms, mainly somatic symptoms, were more prevalent in children without a previous infection, highlighting the impact of the pandemic itself rather than the infection.

Source
  1. Adler L, Israel M, Yehoshua I, et al Long COVID symptoms in Israeli children with and without a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection: a cross-sectional study BMJ Open 2023;13:e064155. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-064155