Symptoms of long Covid differ between children, teens: US study

A new study analysing long-Covid among children and teenagers in the US has found that symptoms differed between the two groups. While children faced more brain and stomach-related problems, teenagers experienced fatigue, physical pain, and loss of smell and taste.

Moreover, long-Covid symptoms common in both adults and teens were more than those between teens and children, highlighting the importance of age groups-based COVID-19 research, according to the team of over 140 researchers that conducted the study.

Published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the study is part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s 'RECOVER' Initiative, aimed at understanding and preventing long-Covid, which refers to a set of persisting symptoms months after having COVID-19 infection.

The researchers studied more than 5,300 children and adolescents, of whom about 3,860 -- - 751 children and 3109 adolescents -- had a history of the viral infection. Caregivers were surveyed for about 75 symptoms that occurred at least 90 days after an initial COVID-19 infection and lasted for at least a month. They were also enquired about their child's overall health and quality of life.

Among children aged 6-11 years, the most common long COVID symptoms were headache (57%), followed by trouble with memory/focusing, trouble sleeping (44 %) and stomach pain (43 %), the study found.

Among the adolescents, about 80% had tiredness or low energy during the day, while physical pain in the body, muscles and joints affected 60% of them. Headaches persisted in 55% of the teens, while 47% of them continued to have trouble remembering or concentrating.

While identifying groups of symptoms distinct to each age group, the researchers developed a long-Covid research index that indicates the likelihood of the condition in a child or a teenager.

The index, separate for both age groups, included 18 prolonged symptoms that were more common in children and 17 common among teenagers.

"The symptoms that make up the research index are not the only symptoms a child may have and they're not the most severe. But they are most predictive in determining who may have long COVID," said lead author of the study Rachel Gross, an associate professor in the departments of Paediatrics and Population Health at New York University.

In the study group, 45% of the infected (338) and 33% of the uninfected children, along with 39% of the infected and 27 % of the uninfected adolescents reported having at least one prolonged symptom, the authors of the study said.

Twenty-six symptoms among infected school-age children and 18 symptoms in infected adolescents persisted in at least 5% of the participants, they said.