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New Delhi: Seven out of seven children who get COVID-19 may continue to have associated symptoms after 15 weeks, an analysis of responses from more than 6,000 subjects aged 11-17 years in the UK has found.
The Children and Young People with Long Covid (CLoCk) Study Headache and fatigue were found to be the most common symptoms.
The study compared, over time, symptomatic children who tested positive with those who tested negative after reporting symptoms. Those who tested positive for COVID using RT-PCR had more symptoms over a period of three months than those who tested negative.
In their pre-print study published on the site Research Square, researchers from the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health wrote: “Three months after the SARS-CoV-2 test, the presence of physical symptoms in both groups was higher than at baseline. . ; 66.5 percent of test-positives and 53.4 percent of test-negatives had no symptoms, while 30.3 percent of test-positives and 16.2 percent of test-negatives had 3+ symptoms.
“Symptom profile did not differ by age: for both 11-15y and 16-17y, the most common symptoms were fatigue, headache and shortness of breath among test-positives and among test-negatives, fatigue, headache and unspecified range Of the second’. Again, the prevalence of fatigue and headache was consistently higher, at 39.0 percent and 23.2 percent versus 24.4 percent in test positive and 14.2 percent in negative, respectively.
The study is significant for the Indian context, given that states are taking steps to open schools with caution.
Read also: Fatigue, hair loss, depression – long Covid study reveals what Wuhan patients suffer in a year
Fewer figures than in earlier studies
The figures reported in this study are lower than some of the earlier studies, which said that more than half of the children who have covid suffer from chronic pain.
Using the Public Health England (PHE) database, the researchers sent questionnaires to 22,000 youth and received 17,000 responses. The current analysis looked at 3,065 people testing positive and 3,739 people testing negative.
The authors wrote in the discussion: “Taking the studies together, there is consistent evidence that some adolescents will have persistent symptoms after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and that mental and physical health symptoms are closely related. and is likely to be helpful in avoiding false dichotomies between the body, for example, stressed individuals may present with somatic symptoms or conversely persistent physical symptoms may be associated with depression and anxiety.
“Some individuals may develop somatic symptom disorder and the existing evidence for effective management of conditions such as pain, headache and fatigue may be usefully evaluated in COVID (children and young people) presenting with persistent physical symptoms in CYPs.” could.”
One of the problems the researchers faced was the low rate of response. They also pointed out that false negatives and false positives in the RT-PCR test results can lead to bias in the findings. But he cautioned against extrapolating the findings of adult ‘long COVID’ studies to children, as the post-disease profiles in the two age groups are very different.
(Edited by Mansa Mohan)
Read also: What is ‘Long Covid’ and why some cured patients remain ill for months
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