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WASHINGTON: Children can clear the new coronavirus that causes Covid-19, even if they are asymptomatic or for a long time after their symptoms have disappeared, according to a new study that sheds more light on the importance of the pediatric population in the spread of the pandemic.
The study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, followed 91 children in 22 hospitals in South Korea, infected with the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and found that they carried the viral RNA genetic material for a longer period than expected. .
“Symptom screening does not identify the majority of Covid-19 cases in children, and SARS-CoV-2 RNA in children is detected for an unexpectedly long time,” noted the researchers, including those from the School of Medicine. from Seoul National University in South Korea in the study.
In a comment, posted on the study, scientists, including Roberta L DeBiasi of the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in the US, said that children can play an important role in transmission of Covid-19.
“To our knowledge, no previous study has consistently focused on the frequency of asymptomatic infection in children or the duration of symptoms and viral shedding in both asymptomatic and symptomatic children,” the researchers noted in the comment.
According to the study, about 22 percent never developed symptoms, 20 percent were initially asymptomatic but developed symptoms later, and 58 percent were symptomatic on their initial test.
Over the course of the research, the scientists said that the hospitals where these children were staying continued to perform them every three days on average, providing a picture of how long viral shedding continues over time.
The findings revealed that the duration of symptoms varied widely, from three days to almost three weeks.
The commentary authors noted that there was also significant spread in terms of how long the children continued to shed the virus and could potentially be infectious.
While the virus was detectable for an average of about two and a half weeks in the entire group, a significant part of the children, about a fifth of the asymptomatic patients and about half of the symptomatic patients, continued to shed the virus. at the three-week mark, they said.
The scientists cautioned that children – a group believed to primarily develop a mild, rapidly passing illness – may retain symptoms for weeks, and even asymptomatic children continued to shed the virus for a long time after the initial test, causing them to becomes a potential key in the transmission of the disease. disease.
However, despite these findings, the comment noted that a qualitative “positive” or “negative” on the test rigs does not necessarily reflect infectivity.
They explained that some positives may indicate the presence of fragments of genetic material that may not make someone sick, or negatives that reflect low levels of viruses that may still be infectious.
According to the scientists, the reliability of the tests may be further limited by the testers themselves, with sampling across different parts of the respiratory tract or even by different staff members leading to different laboratory results.
The researchers said it is also unknown whether asymptomatic individuals are shedding different amounts of the virus than those with symptoms, a drawback of qualitative tests performed by most laboratories.
Tests only for active viruses rather than antibodies ignore the large number of people who may have had and cured an asymptomatic or mild infection, the scientists added.
“Each of these pieces of information that we, our collaborators, and other scientists around the world are working to collect is critical to developing policies that will slow the rate of viral transmission in our community,” DeBiasi said.
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The study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, followed 91 children in 22 hospitals in South Korea, infected with the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and found that they carried the viral RNA genetic material for a longer period than expected. .
“Symptom screening does not identify the majority of Covid-19 cases in children, and SARS-CoV-2 RNA in children is detected for an unexpectedly long time,” noted the researchers, including those from the School of Medicine. from Seoul National University in South Korea in the study.
In a comment, posted on the study, scientists, including Roberta L DeBiasi of the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in the US, said that children can play an important role in transmission of Covid-19.
“To our knowledge, no previous study has consistently focused on the frequency of asymptomatic infection in children or the duration of symptoms and viral shedding in both asymptomatic and symptomatic children,” the researchers noted in the comment.
According to the study, about 22 percent never developed symptoms, 20 percent were initially asymptomatic but developed symptoms later, and 58 percent were symptomatic on their initial test.
Over the course of the research, the scientists said that the hospitals where these children were staying continued to perform them every three days on average, providing a picture of how long viral shedding continues over time.
The findings revealed that the duration of symptoms varied widely, from three days to almost three weeks.
The commentary authors noted that there was also significant spread in terms of how long the children continued to shed the virus and could potentially be infectious.
While the virus was detectable for an average of about two and a half weeks in the entire group, a significant part of the children, about a fifth of the asymptomatic patients and about half of the symptomatic patients, continued to shed the virus. at the three-week mark, they said.
The scientists cautioned that children – a group believed to primarily develop a mild, rapidly passing illness – may retain symptoms for weeks, and even asymptomatic children continued to shed the virus for a long time after the initial test, causing them to becomes a potential key in the transmission of the disease. disease.
However, despite these findings, the comment noted that a qualitative “positive” or “negative” on the test rigs does not necessarily reflect infectivity.
They explained that some positives may indicate the presence of fragments of genetic material that may not make someone sick, or negatives that reflect low levels of viruses that may still be infectious.
According to the scientists, the reliability of the tests may be further limited by the testers themselves, with sampling across different parts of the respiratory tract or even by different staff members leading to different laboratory results.
The researchers said it is also unknown whether asymptomatic individuals are shedding different amounts of the virus than those with symptoms, a drawback of qualitative tests performed by most laboratories.
Tests only for active viruses rather than antibodies ignore the large number of people who may have had and cured an asymptomatic or mild infection, the scientists added.
“Each of these pieces of information that we, our collaborators, and other scientists around the world are working to collect is critical to developing policies that will slow the rate of viral transmission in our community,” DeBiasi said.
