Abstract
Objective: Children with COVID-19 are reported to get the
infection from an adult contact, with minimal secondary transmission
from children. Children do not appear to be efficient transmitters of
infection. Common symptoms in adults infected with COVID-19 include
fever, dry cough and fatigue. The symptoms in children are more atypical
than in adults, and coughing is lighter.
Methods: Children aged 0-18 who was admitted to the emergency
department from March 20 to September 15, 2020 and had confirmed
diagnosis of COVID-19 with a positive real-time reverse-transcriptase
polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were included in the study.
Results: RT-PCR tests were done in 835 children with suspected
SARS-CoV-2 infection and the test was positive in 178 (21.3%) children.
The most common symptoms at the onset of illness were fever (67.4%),
headache (41.1%), cough (36.6%), sore throat (25.7%), fatigue
(22.9%), myalgia (22.9%) and diarrhea (20.6%). One hundred and seven
(61.1%) of the patients were infected by close contact with family
members diagnosed with COVID-19, 35 (20%) of the patients were infected
via close contact with non-family members diagnosed with COVID-19, 11
(6.3%) of the patients had a history of exposure in an epidemic area,
including wedding hall, condolence house and shopping center and 23
(13.1%) of the patients with unknown source of infection.
Conclusion: COVID-19 infection is seen to be milder and cause
less hospitalizations and patient deaths in children. Crowded indoor
environments are the main centers of the spread of the outbreak and
children are unlikely to be the main source of infection of the
pandemic.
Key words: COVID-19 infection, children, symptoms,
transmission, source of infection, real-time PCR