Clinical Profile of Child COVID-19 Patients of Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: Millions of people worldwide have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the prevalence of malnutrition, refusal of immunization during a pandemic, nutritional anemia, air pollution, poverty, poor parental education, inadequate access to high-quality acute healthcare, the clinical characteristics and outcomes of children in Bangladesh may vary from other countries. Information on clinical presentations, outcomes, the relationship between disease incidence and the prevalence of associated disease in Bangladeshi children affected by COVID-19 are scarce. Objective: In this study, our main goal was to evaluate the clinical profile of pediatric COVID-19 patients in child corona unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Bangladesh. Method: This single center observational study was conducted in Child Corona Unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). A total of 1020 COVID-19 positive pediatric patients were included in this study. Results: In our study, 89.1% of patients had fever, 80.8% had a cough, 23.1% had diarrhea, and 70.8% had myalgia. According to CXR reports, 2.1% patients had ground-glass opacity, 38% had local patchy shadowing, 31.8% patients had bilateral patchy shadowing and 27.9% patients had interstitial abnormalities. Correlation of disease severity between without co-morbidity and with co-morbidity is statistically significant (p=0.01). Conclusion: This research revealed a variable range of presentations. This sheds light on the cases of COVID-19 in the pediatric population. Children with COVID-19 normally present with or are asymptomatic with different symptoms; infants may have a high risk of serious illness. However, most cases were reported in children 11-15 years of age and fever, cough, nasal congestion and dyspnoea were typical symptoms. Serious cases were those with co-morbidity and in order to save them additional attention during home care and prompt hospitalization therapy are needed.

Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes of Paediatric Patients with Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): An observational study

“…Initial reports during the pandemic suggested children have milder illness during acute infection [17] . [18][19][20][21] Male female ratio in our study was 1:1 but in other study it was 1.2:1. [18][19][20][21] .…”

“…[18][19][20][21] Male female ratio in our study was 1:1 but in other study it was 1.2:1. [18][19][20][21] . The mean duration of hospitalization was 6.79±7.06 days.…”

“…The mean duration between contact & appearance of symptom was 12.5±12.56 days. Guo C-X et al reported that range of incubation period was 6 to 13 days [21] . Invasive diarrhea was diagnosed in 15.62% of the patients.…”

Clinico-epidemiological characteristics of pediatric COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh

“…This rate is higher than that found by Ghosh et al (1.4%) and Anwar et al (4.1%). 26,32 The low number of neonates among their studies might explain the difference. However, Trevisanuto et al found zero case fatalities among 44 newborns with COVID-19.…”

“…Nearly half of the participants were aged less than one year, which is higher than that found by Anwar et al he median age of pediatric patients with COVID-19 varies from study to study based on the target population and method of selection. 26 A systematic review on the pediatric group by Patel found that the reported median age ranges from 1 to 11 years. The author also presents a composite mean age of 7.9 years with an age range between 1 day and 17 years, similar to our study.…”