Children largely spared from ‘long COVID’, finds Australian study
More than one third of children seen at a major hospital were asymptomatic when diagnosed, doctors say
Children with COVID-19 rarely experience so-called ‘long COVID’ and when they do it’s generally milder than that seen in adults, an Australian study suggests.
The researchers followed up 171 paediatric patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, mostly during Victoria’s second wave in 2020.
Among the cohort (median age of three years) only 12 (8%) reported long-term symptoms after an acute diagnosis and this was mainly mild post-viral cough, fatigue, or both.
There were two severe cases: a baby aged 11 months with Kawasaki disease and a seven-year-old with the rare Kawasaki-like syndrome known to affect children with COVID-19.
