Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Children: Vulnerable or Spared? A Systematic Review

Abstract

The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected people from all cultures, religions, gender, and age groups around the world. In the last few months, several studies have been conducted on various aspects of COVID-19. Our goal was to see if the pediatric population is vulnerable to this infection. In this review, we conducted extensive research mainly by using the PubMed database. We used Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and associated keywords to engage in an extensive search focussing on COVID-19 in the pediatric population. We discovered that most of the studies were from China, and some of them were in the Chinese language. However, English translations of many of the studies were available. For accessing the relevant statistical data, we relied on the World Health Organization (WHO) resources and the official website of the Ontario Government (ontario.ca). Most of the studies showed that the virus has affected the pediatric population. However, we found some differences among these studies regarding the severity of symptoms in children affected by COVID-19. While a few studies stated that the virus has presented with milder symptoms in the pediatric population, some studies have presented data of children who have suffered life-threatening complications due to COVID-19. Although the data is limited, we have been able to conclude from the studies we reviewed that COVID-19 does indeed affect children the same way as any other age group. Moreover, children can act as carriers of the virus and can endanger the lives of other individuals. Besides, neonates and infants can easily acquire the infection from family members without having any exposure to the outside world. Hence, utmost care should be taken while handling this population. More trials and studies should be conducted to analyze the impact of early diagnosis of infection in children and its management.

How to Early Identify and Prevent the SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children for Families?

“…It has been suggested that children with infections are less likely to have a cytokine storm caused by an excessive immune response, so leukopenia and lymphocyte decreases are relatively rare. Similarly, in the detection of Creactive protein, only 3 of 134 patients had transient increases in C-reactive protein (23,27, and 47 mg/L) (13).…”

“…(1) Patients with underlying diseases such as congenital cardiopulmonary airway disease, chronic heart and kidney disease, malnutrition, cancer, diabetes, immune deficiency, hypothyroidism, genetic metabolic diseases, etc. (23,24). (2) Patients with long-term use of immunosuppressants (25).…”

CURRENT SCENARIO OF COVID19 OUTBREAK IN ANDHRAPRADESH & TELANGANA

“…Chest X-ray show infiltrates. CT scan is accurate and specific by showing ground glass opacities and sub segmental consolidation [34] The standards for diagnosis is made by the detection of the viral RNA by real time polymerase chain reaction from a nasopharngeal swab or sputum sample [14].…”

“…[16] Throat swabs are relatively invasive, induce coughing and cause bleeding. Occasionally may increase the risk for health care workers [34]. Two consecutive negative RT-PCR to be obtained before discharge [15].…”

“…On other hand children those are moderately malnourished and history of cardiac surgery due to congenital anomaly are at high risk [33]. Whereas geriatric population is more prone to be infected due to less immunity ,multiple organ dysfunctions and comorbidities [34]. The usage of antibiotics is more in the age group of >60 years this is due to bacterial co infection which requires adjuvant therapies.…”