Most ‘Covid-hit’ children get back on track in six days: Lancet Study

A U.K study published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health journal revealed that Covid-hit children recover in six days and only less than five per cent children show symptoms after four weeks.

However, adults have been suffering from Covid related illness for four more weeks or longer after recovery.

According to the study, many children contracted SARS-CoV-2 virus did not even show symptoms. Some children showed only mild symptoms.

“It is reassuring that the number of children experiencing long-lasting symptoms of Covid-19 is low. Nevertheless, a small number of children do experience long illness with Covid-19, and our study validates the experiences of these children and their families,” Emma Duncan, lead and senior author of the study and a professor at King’s College London, UK, said in a statement.

For the study, researchers from King’s College London collected data through a smartphone app. This included data from more than 2,50,000 UK children aged five to 17 years reported by their parents or carers.

Most children got back to normal within four weeks, with just 77 — or 4.4 per cent — experiencing symptoms after a month.

The most common symptoms seen in children after four weeks were fatigue, headache and loss of sense of smell. Headache appeared more common in early days. The loss of sense of smell were occured later and lasted long.

Of the 1,379 children who developed symptoms at least two months before the end of the study period, fewer than two per cent experienced symptoms for longer than eight weeks.

Older children were more prone to longer day illness than primary school-aged children.

“We found that nearly a quarter of symptomatic children testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the UK’s second wave did not report core symptoms, suggesting the UK testing policy needs reconsideration,” Erika Molteni, first author of the study from King’s College London said in a statement.

“Our data highlight that other illnesses, such as colds and flu, can also have prolonged symptoms in children and it is important to consider this when planning for pediatric health services during the pandemic and beyond,” Michael Absoud, a senior author of the study, and consultant and senior lecturer at King’s College London, said in a statement.