Study of Clinical and Demographic Profile of the SARS-CoV-2 in Children in Tertiary Care Hospital, Hassan

Abstract

Background and Objective: Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a disease that emerged from the in December 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-COV-2). Globally, there was an explosion of the outbreak of SARS-COV-2 infections, triggering a major health concern all over the world. This study describes the clinical and demographic characteristics of COVID-19 children in a tertiary care centre. Methods: This is a prospective observational study, all COVID suspect children admitted in the pediatric ward were screened for SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, all the children who were positive were enrolled for the study done between May 1, 2020 and August 31, 2020 and their demographic and clinical parameters were analyzed. The demographic and epidemiological data was collected and analyzed Results: Out of 140 children with COVID 19 infection admitted in COVID hospital, 77(55%) were male, 116(82.8%) were asymptomatic, 20(14%) children presented with fever, 6(4%) children with sore throat, 7(5%) children with cough and 1 child had significant co morbidity (seizure disorder). Mean HR was 116bpm(0-5yrs), 86bpm (6-10yrs) and 82 bpm (11-18yrs), Mean Spo2 was 97% in all age groups,1(0.8%) case required ventilator or pressure support, 2(1.4%) children required O2 support, 78(55.7%) children were given antiviral drugs. 139 (99.2%) children were successfully discharged and 1 child with co morbidity succumbed to death. Conclusion: The study highlighted those children are less vulnerable and at a lower risk of developing COVID-19 and when they contract the COVID-19 infection, they have a milder or asymptomatic disease than adults with few or minimum complications.