Not severe, but children showing Covid symptoms

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 23

Top Indian pediatricians are starting to see adult-like symptoms in child patients of Covid 19 unlike the last time when the disease in children was largely asymptomatic.

Leading pediatrician and PGI Chandigarh expert Meenu Singh says many children are presenting with respiratory symptoms in the second wave including fever, cough, runny nose, allergy, abdominal pain, fatigue and even interruptions in the food cycle.

“We are seeing more patients than before at the pediatrics facility at PGI and are now starting to expand pediatric infrastructure in other areas as well. Even in my teleconsultations I am getting many more calls about children getting Covid positive than before. Previously we were seeing children nearing adolescence getting sick with Covid but now we are seeing even younger children getting the disease,” she told The Tribune on a day when the Indian Academy of Pediatricians clarified that the third wave of Covid would not impact children disproportionately as is being thought.

In the last sero survey of Covid prevalence by ICMR, it was found that the rate of disease prevalence in 10 to 17 year olds was the same as in adults – 25 pc but with doctors seeing a growing number of children, it is unclear whether these trends will hold.

 “Many children are now reporting respiratory problems which was not the case in the previous wave when fever, rashes and Kawasaki disease were the common signs among Covid positive children. Now we are seeing respiratory distress like pneumonia (in children with Covid), which is an adult-like symptom,” Singh said, calling for policy interventions to create pediatric Covid response.

The expert added that lack of severe disease in children was still a silver lining.

“The recovery rate is also much better in children than in adults,” Singh said, adding that children were transmitting the virus to families.

She advised masks for children aged 2 years and above and certainly for those aged 5 years and above.

Singh also said children playing in groups was not advisable and social distancing was very important.

Indoor play is better, the expert noted, adding that families must see clinicians if their wards complained of fever, cough, weakness and abdominal pain and if a child with no history of allergy reports allergy.

“Pediatricians should also prepare themselves for treating children with Covid. Hospitals should be ready in time. As of today we have very few hospitals with pediatric facilities,” Meenu Singh said, adding that treatment principles in children were the same as in adults.

“Mutants are also punishing children. We need to gear up to face the pediatric burden of Covid,” she said.

The government has meanwhile readied a clinical protocol for Covid in children and has maintained that the disease in children is largely asymptomatic.

But this could be changing, as ground experience of pediatricians shows.