JERUSALEM: A month after her son Aron recovered from a mild case of Covid-19, Sarah Bitton took a three-year-old to the emergency room. He had a high fever, a rash, his eyes and lower body were swollen and red, his stomach was hurting and he was crying in pain.
eventually diagnosed with rare multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) in children, also known as pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome, or PIMSEran was hospitalized for a week in October and has made a full recovery, Bitton said.
“It’s important for me to tell parents, moms around the world that there is a risk. They should know,” Bitton said. “He went through a lot and I stayed with him.”
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors around the world are learning more about how the disease affects children.
While cases of serious illness and death are far more rare in pediatric patients than in adults, tens of thousands of children may coping with its effects. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited COVID-19 as one of the top-10 causes of death among children ages 5 to 11.
A very small proportion may suffer severe complications such as PIMS, which affects less than 0.1% of infected children. “Tall covid“Symptoms persist for weeks or months after infection – affecting children as well as adults.
A large number of countries are qualifying COVID-19 vaccines for young children. The European Union will next week launch a campaign to vaccinate children aged 5 to 11, while a similar US vaccination campaign that began in November is losing momentum.
Doctors hope that the knowledge they have gained will not only improve treatment, but also help parents understand the risks of COVID-19 as they consider vaccinating their children.
“Long COVID and PIMS are a major consideration in vaccination,” said Liat Ashkenazi-Hofnung, head of the post-coronavirus clinic at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Israel.
PIMS, which usually occurs a few weeks after a coronavirus infection, is caused by a sudden overdrive of the immune system, causing inflammation in the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, and gastrointestinal organs. Affected children can spend up to two weeks in the hospital, with some requiring intensive care.
The CDC cited nearly 6,000 PIMS cases nationwide, including 52 deaths. According to Audrey Dion of Boston Children’s Hospital, it is estimated at 3 cases per 10,000 children, in line with some European statistics and Israeli estimates of one in every 3,500 children and a mortality rate of 1%–2%.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health cited six cases of PIMS among more than 8,000 pediatric COVID-19 cases.
‘so frustrated’
Doctors say they have learned how to better treat the condition as most children recover. Studies on children in the UK at six months and one year after PIMS show that most problems were resolved.
“Children from the second wave and now the third wave (of Covid-19) are benefiting from information from the first wave,” said Karen Moshal, a pediatrician at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
A six-month assessment by Moshal and colleagues published in The Lancet PDF found that organ damage is uncommon in children hospitalized with PIMS. Lethargic symptoms, including mental fatigue and physical weakness, often persist, but resolve over time.
“They get tired more quickly. So school work is affected because they can only focus for a short period of time,” Moshal said. “Understanding this is important for both families and youth because they can be very depressed, and also for schools and teachers to understand how to deal with it.”
Several UK and US studies have found that PIMS is more likely to affect black, Hispanic and Asian children, although the causes are still unknown.
Identifying long-term covid in children presents a greater challenge. Determining its prevalence depends on which symptoms are observed, and from whom the information is collected — the physician, the parent, or the child himself, Ashkenazi-Hofnung said.
Zachi Grossman, president of the Israel Pediatric Association, said cautious estimates suggest that around 1% of children with coronavirus will suffer from covid for a long time.
Ashkenazi-Hofnung said his clinic has treated nearly 200 children for Covid over a long period of time.
They believe that previously healthy children and adolescents are likely only “the tip of the iceberg”, suffering symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, headache, tremors and dizziness months after being infected. Huh.
“It can dramatically affect quality of life,” she said.
Ashkenazi-Hofnung said that simple actions such as climbing stairs, running for the bus, or simply standing or walking are unbearable. Some children developed asthma-like symptoms or deafness, and some children who were walking began to crawl back, becoming very tired and in pain.
Most children recover with time, she said, with the help of physiotherapy and medication. About 20% are still struggling.
Ashkenazi-Hoffnung and Moshal observed an additional burden in children suffering from PIMS or chronic covid – a sense of stigma and shame.
“I was quite surprised by this,” Moshal said. “You cannot place blame or shame on being infected with a disease.”
eventually diagnosed with rare multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) in children, also known as pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome, or PIMSEran was hospitalized for a week in October and has made a full recovery, Bitton said.
“It’s important for me to tell parents, moms around the world that there is a risk. They should know,” Bitton said. “He went through a lot and I stayed with him.”
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors around the world are learning more about how the disease affects children.
While cases of serious illness and death are far more rare in pediatric patients than in adults, tens of thousands of children may coping with its effects. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited COVID-19 as one of the top-10 causes of death among children ages 5 to 11.
A very small proportion may suffer severe complications such as PIMS, which affects less than 0.1% of infected children. “Tall covid“Symptoms persist for weeks or months after infection – affecting children as well as adults.
A large number of countries are qualifying COVID-19 vaccines for young children. The European Union will next week launch a campaign to vaccinate children aged 5 to 11, while a similar US vaccination campaign that began in November is losing momentum.
Doctors hope that the knowledge they have gained will not only improve treatment, but also help parents understand the risks of COVID-19 as they consider vaccinating their children.
“Long COVID and PIMS are a major consideration in vaccination,” said Liat Ashkenazi-Hofnung, head of the post-coronavirus clinic at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Israel.
PIMS, which usually occurs a few weeks after a coronavirus infection, is caused by a sudden overdrive of the immune system, causing inflammation in the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, and gastrointestinal organs. Affected children can spend up to two weeks in the hospital, with some requiring intensive care.
The CDC cited nearly 6,000 PIMS cases nationwide, including 52 deaths. According to Audrey Dion of Boston Children’s Hospital, it is estimated at 3 cases per 10,000 children, in line with some European statistics and Israeli estimates of one in every 3,500 children and a mortality rate of 1%–2%.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health cited six cases of PIMS among more than 8,000 pediatric COVID-19 cases.
‘so frustrated’
Doctors say they have learned how to better treat the condition as most children recover. Studies on children in the UK at six months and one year after PIMS show that most problems were resolved.
“Children from the second wave and now the third wave (of Covid-19) are benefiting from information from the first wave,” said Karen Moshal, a pediatrician at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
A six-month assessment by Moshal and colleagues published in The Lancet PDF found that organ damage is uncommon in children hospitalized with PIMS. Lethargic symptoms, including mental fatigue and physical weakness, often persist, but resolve over time.
“They get tired more quickly. So school work is affected because they can only focus for a short period of time,” Moshal said. “Understanding this is important for both families and youth because they can be very depressed, and also for schools and teachers to understand how to deal with it.”
Several UK and US studies have found that PIMS is more likely to affect black, Hispanic and Asian children, although the causes are still unknown.
Identifying long-term covid in children presents a greater challenge. Determining its prevalence depends on which symptoms are observed, and from whom the information is collected — the physician, the parent, or the child himself, Ashkenazi-Hofnung said.
Zachi Grossman, president of the Israel Pediatric Association, said cautious estimates suggest that around 1% of children with coronavirus will suffer from covid for a long time.
Ashkenazi-Hofnung said his clinic has treated nearly 200 children for Covid over a long period of time.
They believe that previously healthy children and adolescents are likely only “the tip of the iceberg”, suffering symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, headache, tremors and dizziness months after being infected. Huh.
“It can dramatically affect quality of life,” she said.
Ashkenazi-Hofnung said that simple actions such as climbing stairs, running for the bus, or simply standing or walking are unbearable. Some children developed asthma-like symptoms or deafness, and some children who were walking began to crawl back, becoming very tired and in pain.
Most children recover with time, she said, with the help of physiotherapy and medication. About 20% are still struggling.
Ashkenazi-Hoffnung and Moshal observed an additional burden in children suffering from PIMS or chronic covid – a sense of stigma and shame.
“I was quite surprised by this,” Moshal said. “You cannot place blame or shame on being infected with a disease.”
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