Introduction:
Coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) is a viral respiratory illness caused by severe acute
respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the first case was
detected in December 2019. (1) The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly
escalated into a global crisis. (2) The first case registered in Egypt
was in February 2020 and since that date, the numbers have been
increasing and by mid-June 2020, 47,856 cases of SARS-CoV-2 and 1766
deaths have been reported by the Ministry of Health (3).
Children are usually develops mild disease (4), a Chinese analysis of
2135 confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 among children revealed
that 55.4% developed mild symptoms or were asymptomatic and only 5.4%
had severe illness compared with 18.5% of adult cases. (5)
Viral infections in general are associated with increased morbidity and
mortality in immunocompromised children. (6) Data on the clinical
features and outcomes of immunocompromised children with cancer who are
infected with SARS-CoV-2 are scarce. Knowledge from previous influenza A
H1N1 pandemics suggests that those vulnerable immunosuppressed children
are likely to be infected and to develop manifestation as an increased
number of cases are described with time. (7,8)
Although isolation as an inpatient is common practice for children who
are receiving intensive chemotherapy or stem cell transplant, most
children with cancer are treated in the outpatient setting, and hospital
visits or intermittent hospital admission are unavoidable for
appropriate delivery of therapy. Risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, either
in the hospital or the community setting, has resulted in widespread
anxiety among families of children with cancer. (9)
The primary objective of this study was to measure the frequency of
SARS-COV-2 infection among hospitalized children with cancer, while the
secondary objective was to identify the associated clinical
manifestations and outcomes in those with confirmed SARS-COV2 infection.