| ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2022 | Volume
: 1
| Issue : 3 | Page : 55-60 |
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A portrait of COVID-19 pandemic among pediatric patients in South India: An observational study
Keerthi Kumaran, VK Gireeshan, R Sreeraj, M Vijayakumar, F C A Babu
Department of Pediatrics, Government Medical College, Manjeri, Kerala, India
Correspondence Address:
Dr. Keerthi Kumaran
Department of Pediatrics, Government Medical College, Manjeri, Kerala
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
DOI: 10.4103/pedc.pedc_14_23
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INTRODUCTION: In a report from Kerala, 7% of coronavirus disease (COVID)-positive patients were constituted by children less than 10 years old. This observational study gives a glimpse to the pattern of COVID-19 disease among the pediatric age group during the first wave of the pandemic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This observational study was conducted in a COVID hospital in Malappuram from July 2020 to March 2021. Children under 12 years old admitted to the hospital with confirmed COVID-19 infection were included in the study. The study included main symptoms, duration of symptoms, laboratory analysis and relations with severity of disease, interventions required, and follow-up details. All these details were collected using a proforma. RESULTS: Four hundred ninety-two patients were included in the study. A total of 51.4% of these patients were asymptomatic. Only 1.8% of children had severe disease. The mean duration for which the symptoms lasted in each child was 1.9 ± 2.8 days (P = 0.00). There was a significant association between the severity of disease and presence of comorbidities, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), C-reactive protein (CRP), liver enzymes, serum ferritin, and X-ray findings (P < 0.05). Some skin lesions were noted in a group of children during the 3 months of follow-up (2%). CONCLUSIONS: During the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic, most of the children had asymptomatic disease. Severe disease was more common in children with chronic comorbidities. NLR, CRP, liver enzymes, serum ferritin, and chest X-ray findings can point toward the severity of the disease. Most of the children improved without any specific treatment. Some skin lesions such as urticaria were noted in the post-COVID period. |
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