Omicron complications may be more serious…: what this new study reveals

Researchers from the University of Hong Kong and Princess Margaret Hospital reviewed hospitalizations of children during different stages of the pandemic. They found that cases were far more severe in the Omicron wave that continues to rip through the city in its worst outbreak of the pandemic. bloomberg a. reported citing Hong Kong Studies,

This comes at a time when a total of 1,147 children in the 0-11 age group were hospitalized due to COVID-19 from February 5 to 28, of whom more than 80% were in the age group of 0-5 years. The need for intensive care treatment for hospitalized people was higher for Omicron, with 21 children – or 1.83% — admitted to the pediatric ICU, compared to Hong Kong in all previous COVID-19 outbreaks. had only another 0.79%. Rates for people with influenza.

For 22 months from the beginning of November 2020 to November 2021, a period covering four previous waves that did not enter Hong Kong nearly as widely as the current outbreak, 737 children aged 0-11 years were tested positive for COVID-19. Cause he was admitted to the hospital.

Omicron resulted in a higher number of seizures in unvaccinated children and targets the upper airway than previous variants and influenza, the researchers said in a preprint paper submitted to The Lancet on March 21.

“The intrinsic severity of Omicron BA.2 is unclear from the lethality and serious complications of uninfected and uninfected children,” they wrote in the paper, which has not been peer-reviewed.

One of the reasons why some infected children under the age of 5 in Hong Kong experienced severe symptoms in the past two years may be a lack of exposure to the coronavirus over the past two years, so they have not built up immunity, the researchers said. In February, only children below the age of 11 years were approved for the vaccination for COVID, while children below the age of 3 are still not eligible.

“Vaccination for eligible children should be implemented rapidly, and expansion of the use of current vaccines should be urgently explored, especially for those under 3 years of age,” the researchers wrote.

Of the 1,147 Omicron hospitalizations, four children died, of whom three were in good health. Their ages were 11 months, 3 and 4. None of the three had been vaccinated against the virus. In the cases from January 2020 to November 2021, there were no deaths from the virus.

In the February phase of the study, Omicron had a mortality rate of 0.35% for hospitalized children, a 0.05% higher than for influenza. The researchers said, however, that this figure is an overestimate because many children with mild omicron symptoms were not taken to hospital and instead received care at home.

(with inputs from agencies)