Features of the course of Covid-19 infection in children

Abstract

The COVID-19 infection has become an unexpected challenge for global health in recent years. The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes severe illness in adults, was most often asymptomatic in the pediatric population. However, since the appearance of the new virus, the estimated share of infected children has risen from less than 2% to 8.5% of all infected patients. Taking into account the fact that asymptomatic and oligosymptomatic pediatric patients most often do not complain, it can be assumed that the exact occurrence rate of the SARS-CoV-2 virus among children is higher than officially published data. Similarly to adults, the presence of comorbidities in children was associated with severe forms of the coronavirus infection and the need for intensive care. The clinical pattern of COVID-19 in children is not fundamentally different from that in adult patients, but however, gastrointestinal symptoms are found much more often. In addition, complications characteristic of the pediatric population are observed. The aim hereof was to analyze the features of the manifestation of the COVID-19 infection in pediatric patients.