September 19, 2023 – The rate of long-COVID disease in children is “strikingly low,” lower than 1%, say researchers behind a brand new study published within the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
In the final population, about 10% of people that contract COVID-19 suffer from Long COVID. Yahoo Life reported.
The World Health Organization defines Long COVID as symptoms three months after infection with the virus. Symptoms must last at the least two months and there isn’t any other explanation.
In the current study, researchers stated that “in most children, symptoms disappeared within two weeks of infection.”
This doesn’t mean that folks should refuse to vaccinate their children, Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist and professor of drugs at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told Yahoo Life.
“We know that vaccination not only prevents severe COVID but also helps shorten long COVID,” he says. “I wouldn't let this one study alone stop you from getting your children vaccinated.”
In the study, researchers examined information on greater than 1,000 children with a median age of 10.5 years in Alberta, Canada, from August 2020 to March 2021.
Children were considered long-COVID patients if:
- You had a positive PCR test for COVID-19 infection.
- They developed recent symptoms three months after a positive PCR test for the virus.
- And the symptoms lasted for at the least eight weeks after they began.
The study found that symptoms improved inside 10 weeks of a positive COVID-19 test.
The commonest symptoms included sore throat, stuffy nose, cough and fever.
Only one child met the WHO definition of long COVID disease.