Nearly 6% of children suffer long COVID but symptoms may be less severe: study

The eight-country study included 1,884 kids aged 17 and younger who went to an emergency department with COVID-19 and had 90-day followups.

Their symptoms may be less severe, but a study shows that nearly six per cent of children with COVID-19 still reported symptoms three months later.

The eight-country study included 1,884 kids aged 17 and younger who went to an emergency department with COVID-19 and had 90-day followups.

Long-term COVID-19 was found in nearly 10 per cent of children who were admitted to hospital and five per cent of children who were seen in an emergency department and discharged.

The study involved the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine, the University of California, Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento, Calif., Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Chicago’s Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

It was peer-reviewed and published in JAMA Network Open on Friday.

The study says long COVID was more likely in children aged 14 and older who had spent time in hospital with more severe symptoms.

“We found that in some children, illness with COVID-19 is associated with reporting persistent symptoms after three months,” said principal investigator Dr. Stephen Freedman, a pediatric emergency medicine physician and a clinician-scientist in the Cumming School of Medicine.

“Our results suggest that appropriate guidance and followup are needed, especially for children at high risk for long COVID.”