Results:
In Lebanon, by the end of April 2020, a total of 725 COVID-19 cases were
confirmed by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assay (PCR)
testing. 64 cases (9%) were below 19 years of age, of which 1% were
below 10 years and 8% between 10 and 19 years. The majority were
asymptomatic. Nine patients were hospitalized, mostly for observation
and isolation with their affected parents. Among the 24 reported
mortalities (3.3% of the patients) and the 44 critically ill patients
(6.1%), there were no pediatric patients. One patient, a 16-month-old
girl, previously healthy, presented with fever and diarrhea but no
cough1. She subsequently was found to have bilateral
pneumonia. She had a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test andStreptococcus pneumoniae bacteremia and recovered within
few days on antibiotic therapy. Another patient who tested positive, a
14-year-old girl, was hospitalized for bilateral pneumonia and had to be
transferred briefly to the intensive care unit for observation because
of accidental hydroxychloroquine overdose.
The reported incidence of pediatric COVID-19 in other Middle Eastern
countries is shown in Table 1.