Coronavirus: Some children could become seriously ill – Research reveals

Children wear a face cover outside a convenience store in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, March 16, 2020. Iraq announced a weeklong curfew to help fight the spread of coronavirus, late Sunday. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

The coronavirus already declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization has been found to be deadly to older persons who contract the disease, however scientists have given insight on the need to brace paediatric measures to protect children.

Recent study report that while most children develop mild or moderate symptoms, a small percentage — especially babies and preschoolers — can become seriously ill.

The study, published online in the journal Pediatrics, looked at more than 2,000 ill children across China, where the pandemic began. It provides a clearer portrait of how the youngest patients are affected by the virus, knowledge that experts say can help influence policies like school closures, hospital preparedness and the deployment of an eventual treatment and vaccine.

“Effectively, what this tells us is that hospitals should prepare for some pediatric patients because we can’t rule out children altogether,” said Dr. Srinivas Murthy, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia, who was not involved in the study.

“The main conclusion,” Murthy continued, “is that children are infected at rates that may be comparable to adults, with severity that’s much less, but that even within the kids, there’s a spectrum of illness and there’s a handful that require more aggressive therapy.”

More than 60% of the 125 children who became severely ill or critically ill were age 5 or younger, the study reported. Forty of those were infants, under 12 months old.

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