Advances in researches on long coronavirus disease in children: a narrative review

Abstract

Background and Objective In the context of the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), more than 700 million infections and millions of deaths have occurred in countries around the world. Currently, two main sequelae of this disease are considered to occur in children, namely, multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children and long COVID. Among these two, the incidence of long COVID is higher and its impact on the population is more extensive, which is the focus of us. However, due to the lack of relevant studies and the limitations of most studies, the studies on sequelae of COVID-19 infection lag behind those of adults, but they have begun to attract the attention of some clinicians and researchers. We aim to summarize the current knowledge of long COVID in children, helping pediatricians and researchers to better understand this disease and providing guidance on research and clinical treatment of it. Methods We reviewed all the studies on “long COVID”, pediatric, children, adolescent, post-COVID syndrome in PubMed published after 2019. Key Content and Findings This review summarizes the latest researches on epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, prevention and treatment of long COVID in children. Based on the existing research data, we summarized and analyzed the characteristics of long COVID in children, discovering the means to decipher the diagnosis of COVID-19 in children and some potential therapeutic treatments. Conclusions We aim to summarize existing research on long COVID in children and help pediatricians and government agencies quickly understand the disease so that it can be used for clinical diagnosis, treatment and prevention in the population. In addition, providing a research basis for further researches on the cellular and even molecular level to explain the occurrence and development of diseases, and has a guiding role for future research direction.