August. April 4, 2022 — CDC researchers report that children and adolescents with long-term COVID are about twice as likely to have severe outcomes compared to others without COVID.
Heart inflammation; blood clots in the lungs; blood clots in the lower legs, thighs or pelvis were the most common adverse outcomes in a new study. Although the risk of these and some other serious events is higher, the overall numbers are small.
“Many of these conditions were rare or uncommon in children in this analysis, but even small increases in these conditions were significant,” Disease The new version of the CDC says.
Researchers say their findings underscore the importance of vaccinating Americans under the age of 18 against COVID-19.
The study was published online Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) .
Little is known about chronic COVID-19 infection in children
Dr. Lyudmyla Kompaniyets and Colleagues point out that most studies to date have conducted long-term studies of COVID in adults, so there is little information about the risk to Americans 17 and younger.
- 101% increased likelihood of developing acute pulmonary embolism (thrombus in the lungs)
- 99% chance of having myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) or cardiomyopathy (when the heart is weak and hard to pump)
More than 87% of venous thromboembolic events (venous thrombosis) may occur32% had acute and unspecified renal failure (when the kidneys are unable to filter waste from the blood )23% more likes are prone to type 1 diabetes
to learn more, they compared the post-COVID-19 symptoms and conditions of 781,419 children and adolescents diagnosed with COVID-19 and another 2,344,257 without COVID-19. They looked at medical claims and lab data from the children and adolescents between March 1, 2020, and January 31, 2022, to determine who had any of 15 specific outcomes associated with long-term COVID.
Prolonged COVID is defined as a condition in which symptoms persist or begin at least 4 weeks after a COVID diagnosis.
Compared with children without a history of COVID-19 diagnosis, the long-term COVID-19 group was:
” This report states Given the risk of COVID infection itself, both in terms of acute effects, MIS-C, and long-term effects, are real, concerning, and potentially very serious,” said Stuart Berger, MD, American Academy of Pediatrics, Cardiology and Chairman of the Cardiac Surgery Branch.
MIS-C is Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, a condition in which many parts of the body become inflamed and has been linked to COVID-19.
“The message we should take from this is that we should be very enthusiastic about all the ways to prevent COVID, especially vaccines,” said Berger, who is also at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Director of Paediatric Cardiology.
A ‘wake-up call’
Study findings ‘sobering’ , is “a reminder of the seriousness of COVID infections,” said Gregory Poland, MD, an infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
“When you focus specifically on more serious conditions in this younger age group, complications from COVID are life-changing complications that will have consequences and consequences,” he said.
“I think this is a serious wake-up call for parents, [at this time] immunization rates for young children Poorly low,” Poland said.
Still in early stages
The research is instructive , but not definitive, said Professor Peter Katona, MD, PhD, an expert in medicine and infectious disease at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
It is too early to draw conclusions about long-term COVID, including children, as many questions remain, he said: Long-term COVID should be defined as 1 month or 3 months after infection month symptoms? How do you define brain fog?
Katona and colleagues are studying long-term COVID interventions among UCLA students to answer some of these questions, including the incidence and effects of early intervention.
The study “has at least seven limitations,” the researchers noted. One of these is the use of medical claims data, which record long-term COVID outcomes but do not say how severe they are; some people in the no-COVID group may have been sick but not diagnosed; status is adjusted.
Poland noted that the study was done during a surge in COVID variants including Delta and Omicron. In other words, any long-term COVID effects associated with newer variants like BA.5 or BA.2.75 are unknown.
