December 23, 2020

Epidemiology of COVID-19 Infection in Young Children under Five Years: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Clinical Characteristics and Health Care Setting

Keywords (Tags): candidate, children, clinical characteristics, report, summarize

A meta-analysis of laboratory confirmed COVID-19 in children under 5 years of age determined that children were frequently prescribed antibiotics and that the majority of the reported cases were children less than one year old. Bhuiyan et al. identified 65 studies of epidemiological and clinical characteristics of lab-confirmed COVID-19 infections in 1,214 children under age 5 published until June 4, 2020. Their meta-analysis estimates suggest that 50% of young COVID-19 cases were under one year old, 53% were male, 43% were asymptomatic, and 7% had severe disease that required intensive-care-unit admission. Although all the children in the study had a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19, 71% were treated with antibiotics.

Bhuiyan et al. (Dec 2020). Epidemiology of COVID-19 Infection in Young Children under Five Years: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Vaccine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.11.078