BMJ: One in seven children may still have Long Covid symptoms 15 weeks after infection

Children, Coronavirus, Hospitalization, Infection, Long Covid, Side Effects, Symptoms, Testing, Transmission, UK

Up to one in seven (14%) children and young people who caught SARS-CoV-2 may have symptoms linked to the virus 15 weeks later, suggest preliminary findings from the world’s largest study on long Covid in children, led by UCL and Public Health England researchers.

For the study, published on the preprint site Research Square and funded by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), researchers surveyed 3,065 11- to 17-year-olds in England who had positive results in a PCR test between January and March as well as a matched control group of 3,739 11- to 17-year-olds who tested negative over the same period.

They found that, when surveyed at an average of 15 weeks after their test, 14% more young people in the test positive group had three or more symptoms of ill health, including unusual tiredness and headaches, than those in the test negative group, while 7% (one in 14) more had five or more symptoms.

The researchers said the data suggested that, over seven months between last September and March, at least 4,000 and possibly 32,000 teenagers of the total population of 11- to 17-year-olds who tested positive in England may have had multiple (three or more) symptoms tied to Covid-19 infection after 15 weeks.

UCL article

Preprint: Long COVID – the physical and mental health of children and non-hospitalised young people 3 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection; a national matched cohort study (The CLoCk) Study.

 

 

 

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

** This post was originally published on October 18, 2021 **