Abstract
Background Early reports suggest that most children infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (“SARS-CoV-2”) have mild symptoms. What is not known is whether children with chronic respiratory illnesses have exacerbations associated with SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Methods An expert panel created a survey, which was circulated twice (in April and May 2020) to members of the Paediatric Assembly of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and via the social media of the ERS. The survey stratified patients by the following conditions: asthma, cystic fibrosis (CF), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) and other respiratory conditions.
Results In total 174 centres responded to at least one survey. 80 centres reported no cases, whereas 94 entered data from 945 children with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). SARS-CoV-2 was isolated from 49 children with asthma of whom 29 required no treatment, 19 needed supplemental oxygen and four children required mechanical ventilation. Of the 14 children with CF and COVID-19, 10 required no treatment and four had only minor symptoms. Among the nine children with BPD and COVID-19, two required no treatment, five required inpatient care and oxygen and two were admitted to a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) requiring invasive ventilation. Data were available from 33 children with other conditions and SARS-CoV-2 of whom 20 required supplemental oxygen and 11 needed noninvasive or invasive ventilation.
Conclusions Within the participating centres, in children with asthma and CF, infection with SARS-CoV-2 was well tolerated, but a substantial minority of children with BPD and other conditions required ventilatory support indicating that these latter groups are at risk from SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Abstract
Whereas children with asthma and CF seem not to be at increased risk of severe #COVID19, a minority of children with other respiratory diseases might be at increased risk and may benefit from being shielded https://bit.ly/3fiwUXp
Footnotes
This article has supplementary material available from openres.ersjournals.com
Conflict of interest: A. Moeller has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: L. Thanikkel has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: L. Duijts has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: E.A. Gaillard has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: L. Garcia-Marcos has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: A. Kantar has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: N. Tabin is an employee of the European Respiratory Society.
Conflict of interest: S. Turner has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: A. Zacharasiewicz reports financial compensation for participation in advisory boards from Vertex, Novartis, Chiesi, Gilead and AOP, and lecture fees from Hagleitner Hygiene, AstraZeneca, and Heine und Löwenstein.
Conflict of interest: M.W.H. Pijnenburg has nothing to disclose.
- Received June 22, 2020.
- Accepted July 27, 2020.
- Copyright ©ERS 2020
This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.