To deal with this steadily rising influx of patients, the UK has now established 15 specialist paediatric hubs designed to provide post-Covid care, while the US and many other countries are making similar investments. This is backed up by the latest data from the UK's Office of National Statistics which found that the number of children under 16 with self-reported Long Covid of any duration 'increased from 77,000 in October 2021, to 119,000 in January 2022. Other countries are seeing similar trends." "In our hospital for example, the number of children and adolescents who were diagnosed with a post-Covid condition this month is already more than three times higher than what we experienced in the summer months. "We are currently seeing an uptick in the number of children being diagnosed with post-Covid conditions," says Carlos Oliveira, a paediatrician who runs the post-Covid care program at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, in Connecticut, US. While the vast majority of children recover quickly, specialists are still concerned about early signs which indicate that the rates of those with long Covid could be rising. Similar findings have been reported in the UK, with reports in early February 2022 noting there has been an increase in the proportion of children admitted to hospital with Covid-19 during the Omicron wave, especially those under the age of one. This was particularly notable among children aged 0-4 years who were not yet eligible for vaccination. However, the emergence of the Omicron variant – which is more infectious than previous forms of Covid-19 – and its new subvariant BA.2, has now led to a much higher proportion of children becoming infected with the virus.Īccording to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, Covid-19 hospital admission rates among children and adolescents under the age of 17 increased rapidly in late December 2021, as the Omicron variant began to take off. It was thought this might be because younger children do not have as many ACE2 receptors – the keyhole the virus targets to invade our cells in their nose and respiratory tract. ![]() He points out that just as in adults, even children who are asymptomatic or mildly infected can develop persistent problems.Ĭhildren have generally been thought to be less vulnerable to the longer-term effects of Covid-19, with the risk decreasing the younger they are. Like many paediatricians, he has seen children with lingering symptoms of fatigue, insomnia, joint pain, respiratory issues, skin rashes and heart palpitations, which can remain months after the infection has passed.īuonsenso says it is vital that children are not left behind in studies of post-Covid illness. "And then they were not able to return to their normal school routine because they were getting headaches or had difficulty concentrating after a few hours."Ī paediatrician at the Gemelli University Hospital, Buonsenso was the first doctor to survey whether children were vulnerable to long Covid. ![]() "Most of the children I've seen were completely healthy before Covid, they were doing sport, extra-school activities," says Buonsenso. Months after they had apparently recovered from the initial viral infection, the children continued to struggle with a wide range of symptoms that left them unable to return to their normal lives. Most played sports and took part in activities after school. Before they fell ill, the children being seen by Danilo Buonsenso at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome, Italy, had been lively and active.
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