Covid aggravates asthma in children

New York, May 4

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Asthma in children is likely to get worse after a Covid-19 infection, finds a large-scale nationwide study in the US. Six months after a Covid infection, asthmatic children showed significant increases in emergency department visits, hospitalisations, emergency inhaler use, and steroid treatments, compared to children without Covid, researchers reported in a pre-print of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

A team from Children’s Hospital of Orange County in California examined 61,916 asthmatic children aged 2-17.9 years who were infected with Covid between March 2020 and February 2021. “Our data demonstrates that while asthma outcomes were improved for those who tested negative for SARS-COV-2, asthmatic children who were definitively diagnosed with Covid-19 have worse asthma control in the first six months after infection,” said Dr. Christine C. Chou from the Hospital’s Department of Paediatrics.

On the other hand, children who tested negative for Covid virus had improved asthma control for the next six months. IANS