1% of children develop long Covid, the discovery at the Gemelli in Rome

A new meeting between experts returns to deepen the «long Covid». It affects adults and children, perhaps even 10-20% of those who have overcome one (or more) Sars CoV-2 infections, even of a mild degree. And as for the little ones, it is estimated that it concerns 1% of those who have recovered from the disease. This was recalled by the Gemelli hospital in Rome – which today follows 230 pediatric cases and 3,900 patients with this problem – on the occasion of the Long Covid Awareness Day (International Long Covid Awareness Day).

Gemelli has taken on an international role as the first center in the world to report long Covid in children. The causes of this condition – we have seen it on several occasions – they are not known, especially in children. Suffice it to say that until a few weeks ago the World Health Organization had developed an official definition of long Covid only for adults. “The lack of a pediatric definition obviously created a whole series of limitations for the recognition of the disease in this age group, but also in the field of research for the standardization of jobs, classifications and so on,” he explains Danilo Buonsenso, of the pediatrics unit of the Agostino Gemelli Irccs University Hospital Foundation, professor of pediatrics at the Catholic University and expert on pediatric long Covid, at theAdnKronos.

For this reason «the WHO organized a few months ago research table which involved experts in the management of long Covid from all over the world, as well as parents and patients themselves, to develop a process through which the definition of pediatric long Covid was arrived at, which was published last February on the WHO portal . We at Gemelli were also involved in this working table having been the first center in the world to report the existence of long Covid in children and to publish the first evidence of a certain relevance on the subject”.

So when can we speak appropriately of long Covid in childhood? According to the new WHO definition «when children, healthy before Covid, develop persistent signs and symptoms for at least two months after infectionrelated to new health problems, not explained by other diagnoses. These symptoms include chronic asthenia, easy fatigue, cognitive problems, memory lapses, musculoskeletal pain, cardiac problems (chest pain, heart rhythm alterations, myopericarditis, etc.) and above all a very poor tolerance to even slight efforts “as recalled by the expert.

Common sense adds that today «we see kids who practiced sports several times a day and who after Covid they are easily fatiguedeven just making a flight of stairs. At the moment we do not have a therapy because we still don’t know why some patients develop long Covid. But ours and other groups are working on the study of new biomarkers of long Covid. From the preliminary data in this regard we are quite optimistic; in the coming months we will be able to better understand why some patients develop long Covid and others do not ».

Pediatric long Covid is therefore faced with personalized treatments and therapies on the basis of the main problems encountered, patient by patient: «In children with chronic headaches, the typical therapeutic pathways of chronic headaches in the pediatric age are activated; for those with heart rhythm disturbances, the administration of anti-arrhythmic drugs is foreseen; for those with chronic or vascular myocarditis, antiplatelet or anticoagulant therapy. Finally, some therapies for asthenia are being studied», concludes the pediatrician.

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