Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

August 28, 2020

Clinical Characteristics of Children and Young People Admitted to Hospital with Covid-19 in United Kingdom: Prospective Multicentre Observational Cohort Study

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  • A prospective observational cohort study in the UK of children and young adults (n=651, median age=4.6, IQR 0.3-13.7) found that 52/456 (11%) participants met the WHO case definition for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children and adolescents temporally related to COVID-19 (MIS-C). Children who met criteria for MIS-C were older than children who did not (median 10.7 years vs 1.6 years) and were more likely to be of non-white ethnicity (64% vs 42%). The most common symptom clusters among the whole cohort were a respiratory illness followed by a systemic mucocutaneous enteric illness cluster that included headache, muscle ache, sore throat, vomiting, abdominal pain, rash, swollen lymph nodes and conjunctivitis. In multivariable analysis, acute COVID-19 was associated with age <1 month (OR: 3.2, 95% CI 1.4-7.7), age 10-14 years (OR: 3.2, 95% CI: 1.6-7.0), and Black ethnicity (OR: 2.8, 1.4 to 5.6).

Swann et al. (Aug 27, 2020). Clinical Characteristics of Children and Young People Admitted to Hospital with Covid-19 in United Kingdom: Prospective Multicentre Observational Cohort Study. BMJ. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3249