The COVID19 pandemic has forced the world to be closed in a shell. It has affected large population worldwide, but studies regarding its effect on children very limited. The majority of the children, who may not be able to grasp the entire emergency, are at a bigger risk with other problems lurking behind the attack of SARS-CoV-2 virus. The risk of infection in children was 1.3%, 1.5%, and 1.7 % of total confirmed COVID-19 cases in China, Italy and United States respectively which is less compared to 2003 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), when 5-7 % of the positive cases were children, with no deaths reported while another recent multinational multicentric study from Europe which included 582 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) confirmed children of 0- 18 year of age, provide deeper and generalize incite about clinical effects of COVID19 infection in children. According to this study 25% children have some pre-existing illness and 8 % required ICU (intensive care unit) admission with 0.69% case fatality among all infected children. Common risk factor for serious illness as per this study are younger age, male sex and pre-existing underlying chronic medical condition. However, we need to be more concerned about possible implications of indirect and parallel psychosocial and mental health damage due to closure of schools, being in confinement and lack of peer interaction due to COVID19 related lockdown and other containment measures. The effects can range from mood swings, depression, anxiety symptoms to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, while no meaningful impact on COVID19 related mortality reduction is evident with school closure measures. The objective of this paper is to look at both the positive & negative effects in children due to COVID19 related indirect effects following lockdown and other containment measures. There is a need to gear up in advance with psychological strategies to deal with it post the pandemic by involving all stakeholders (parents, teachers, paediatricians, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, counsellors), proposing an integrated approach to help the children to overcome the pandemic aftermath
Neurologic manifestation of coronavirus disease 2019 in children is evolving with time. We are reporting a young girl who presented to us with acute febrile illness followed by acute onset severe flaccid paralysis requiring prolonged intensive care unit stay and ventilator support. She was evaluated extensively and found to be positive for COVID serology, and neuroimaging revealed features of longitudinally extensive transverse myelitis (LETM) with enhancing cauda equina nerve roots, suggesting Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). She failed to respond to immune suppressive therapy and needed plasma exchange for recovery. Like other common viral illnesses, COVID-19 can also act as a trigger for GBS-like illness and LETM, and we need to suspect these diagnoses in the cases with COVID-19 infection in compatible cases. This is probably the first pediatric case with concurrent GBS and LETM secondary to COVID-19 infection.
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