The incidence and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 in children with IBD during the Omicron Wave: a single-center experience in China

Abstract

Aims The pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had a major impact on the health of people worldwide, including the pediatric inflammatory bowel diseases (PIBD) patients. As no study has investigated the susceptibility and disease course of COVID-19 in PIBD patients after the end of zero-COVID policy in China, we conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study in our center. Methods A cross-sectional survey enrolling PIBD patients has been completed by online survey, phone, and face-to-face assessment. The demographic data, epidemiological characteristics, clinical manifestations, treatment and prognosis of the patients were analyzed. Results PIBD patients represented 55.45%(56/101) of SARS-CoV-2 positive cases between December 1st 2022 and January 31th 2023, 67.86% were male, mean age was 11.15 ± 3.92 years old. Among the SARS-CoV-2 positive cases, 3 patients (5.36%) were asymptomatic, 53 patients (94.64%) had mild symptoms. The main symptoms were fever (92.86%), cough (69.64%), nasal congestion or runnig nose (35.71%), and sore throat (33.93%). No severe case or deaths were reported. All patients recovered from COVID-19 symptoms within one week. We did not observe an association between different clinical disease activities and SARS-CoV-2 infection rates, so as it in different treatments. 51 patients were reported to be in close contact with persons confirmed with COVID-19 infection, and out of them, 36 patients test positive of SARS-CoV-2, which is significantly higher than it in patients without exposure of COVID-19 (70.59% vs. 33.33%, p = 0.002). A total of 10 patients were underweight, of which 9 patients tested positive for COVID-19(p = 0.048). Meanwhile, unvaccinated patients were also found to be more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 than vaccinated patients(70.97% vs. 48.48%, p = 0.049). Conclusions The incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in our center of pediatric IBD patients during the Omicron pandemic was 55.45%. No severity or death case was observed. Patients with underweight, unvaccinated and history of exposure to COVID-19 were at higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection.