Cargando…

True prevalence of long COVID in children: a narrative review

Contrary to what is true for adults, little is known about pediatric long COVID (LC). Studies enrolling children are relatively few and extremely heterogeneous. This does not allow to draw definitive conclusions on the frequency and pathogenesis of pediatric LC and limits the development of appropri...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Esposito, Susanna, Deolmi, Michela, Ramundo, Greta, Puntoni, Matteo, Caminiti, Caterina, Principi, Nicola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10543413/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37789860
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1225952
_version_ 1785114294756573184
author Esposito, Susanna
Deolmi, Michela
Ramundo, Greta
Puntoni, Matteo
Caminiti, Caterina
Principi, Nicola
author_facet Esposito, Susanna
Deolmi, Michela
Ramundo, Greta
Puntoni, Matteo
Caminiti, Caterina
Principi, Nicola
author_sort Esposito, Susanna
collection PubMed
description Contrary to what is true for adults, little is known about pediatric long COVID (LC). Studies enrolling children are relatively few and extremely heterogeneous. This does not allow to draw definitive conclusions on the frequency and pathogenesis of pediatric LC and limits the development of appropriate and effective measures to contain the clinical, social and economic impact of this condition on the pediatric population. Depending on the methods used to collect and analyze data, studies have found that the incidence rate of pediatric LC may vary from about 25% to less than 5%. However, despite true prevalence of pediatric LC cannot be exactly defined, studies comparing children with previous COVID-19 and uninfected controls have shown that most of the clinical manifestations detected in infected children, mainly mood symptoms, mental health disorders and heart abnormalities could be diagnosed with similar frequency and severity in uninfected subjects also. This seems to indicate that SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of pediatric LC only in a part of children and other factors play a relevant role in this regard. Pandemic itself with the persistent disruption of child lives may have caused persistent stress in all the pediatric population causing mood symptoms, mental health disorders or several organ and body system functional alterations, regardless SARS-CoV-2 infection. These suppositions suggest the need for long-term physical control of all the children after COVID-19 especially when they were already suffering from an underlying disease or have had a severe disease. Moreover, attention should be paid to the assessment of change in children’s emotional and behavioral functioning in order to assure adequate interventions for the best emotional and behavioral well being. However, whatever its origin, it seems highly likely that the prevalence of the pediatric LC is set to decline in the future. Preliminary observations seem to suggest that recently developed SARS-CoV-2 variants are associated with less severe COVID-19. This suggests that, as already seen in adults, a lower number of pediatric virus-associated LC cases should occur. Furthermore, the use of COVID-19 vaccines, reducing incidence and severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection, may reduce risk of LC development. Finally, elimination of restrictive measures should significantly reduce mood symptoms and mental health disorders.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10543413
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-105434132023-10-03 True prevalence of long COVID in children: a narrative review Esposito, Susanna Deolmi, Michela Ramundo, Greta Puntoni, Matteo Caminiti, Caterina Principi, Nicola Front Microbiol Microbiology Contrary to what is true for adults, little is known about pediatric long COVID (LC). Studies enrolling children are relatively few and extremely heterogeneous. This does not allow to draw definitive conclusions on the frequency and pathogenesis of pediatric LC and limits the development of appropriate and effective measures to contain the clinical, social and economic impact of this condition on the pediatric population. Depending on the methods used to collect and analyze data, studies have found that the incidence rate of pediatric LC may vary from about 25% to less than 5%. However, despite true prevalence of pediatric LC cannot be exactly defined, studies comparing children with previous COVID-19 and uninfected controls have shown that most of the clinical manifestations detected in infected children, mainly mood symptoms, mental health disorders and heart abnormalities could be diagnosed with similar frequency and severity in uninfected subjects also. This seems to indicate that SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of pediatric LC only in a part of children and other factors play a relevant role in this regard. Pandemic itself with the persistent disruption of child lives may have caused persistent stress in all the pediatric population causing mood symptoms, mental health disorders or several organ and body system functional alterations, regardless SARS-CoV-2 infection. These suppositions suggest the need for long-term physical control of all the children after COVID-19 especially when they were already suffering from an underlying disease or have had a severe disease. Moreover, attention should be paid to the assessment of change in children’s emotional and behavioral functioning in order to assure adequate interventions for the best emotional and behavioral well being. However, whatever its origin, it seems highly likely that the prevalence of the pediatric LC is set to decline in the future. Preliminary observations seem to suggest that recently developed SARS-CoV-2 variants are associated with less severe COVID-19. This suggests that, as already seen in adults, a lower number of pediatric virus-associated LC cases should occur. Furthermore, the use of COVID-19 vaccines, reducing incidence and severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection, may reduce risk of LC development. Finally, elimination of restrictive measures should significantly reduce mood symptoms and mental health disorders. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-09-14 /pmc/articles/PMC10543413/ /pubmed/37789860 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1225952 Text en Copyright © 2023 Esposito, Deolmi, Ramundo, Puntoni, Caminiti and Principi. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Microbiology
Esposito, Susanna
Deolmi, Michela
Ramundo, Greta
Puntoni, Matteo
Caminiti, Caterina
Principi, Nicola
True prevalence of long COVID in children: a narrative review
title True prevalence of long COVID in children: a narrative review
title_full True prevalence of long COVID in children: a narrative review
title_fullStr True prevalence of long COVID in children: a narrative review
title_full_unstemmed True prevalence of long COVID in children: a narrative review
title_short True prevalence of long COVID in children: a narrative review
title_sort true prevalence of long covid in children: a narrative review
topic Microbiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10543413/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37789860
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1225952
work_keys_str_mv AT espositosusanna trueprevalenceoflongcovidinchildrenanarrativereview
AT deolmimichela trueprevalenceoflongcovidinchildrenanarrativereview
AT ramundogreta trueprevalenceoflongcovidinchildrenanarrativereview
AT puntonimatteo trueprevalenceoflongcovidinchildrenanarrativereview
AT caminiticaterina trueprevalenceoflongcovidinchildrenanarrativereview
AT principinicola trueprevalenceoflongcovidinchildrenanarrativereview