Long COVID Symptoms in Children and Teens: Study Finds - Video

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association elucidates the team's newly developed index identifies children and adolescents who are at the greatest risk of developing long COVID.

The team’s newly developed index identifies children and adolescents most likely to develop Long COVID. This research tool is based on long-term symptoms that are more frequently observed in children with a history of COVID-19 infection compared to those without such a history.

Children and teenagers were observed to experience persistent symptoms affecting nearly every organ system following infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, with fatigue and pain being the most common.

School-age children exhibited a specific pattern of symptoms including neuropsychological effects such as memory or concentration issues, sleep disturbances, and gastrointestinal problems. In contrast, adolescents showed a unique cluster of symptoms involving changes in or loss of taste or smell, which was not present in younger children.

In the RECOVER Pediatric Observational Cohort Study (RECOVER-Pediatrics), the current research involved 751 school-age children infected with SARS-CoV-2 and 147 uninfected school-age children, as well as 3,109 infected adolescents and 1,369 uninfected adolescents, across over 60 healthcare institutions.

The post-acute sequelae of SARS-COV-2 infection include trouble with memory or focusing, back or neck pain, stomach pain, headache, fear of specific things (phobias), refusing to go to school, itchy skin or rash, trouble sleeping, nausea or vomiting, and feeling lightheaded or dizzy. In adolescents, the most predictive symptoms were change in or loss of smell and/or taste, body, muscle, or joint pain, daytime tiredness, tiredness after walking, back or neck pain, trouble with memory or focusing, headache, and feeling lightheaded or dizzy.

Approximately 65 million people globally are affected by Long COVID, and its effects on global health are anticipated to persist for decades. The NIH’s Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative seeks to address these gaps through an extensive study of the condition.

Reference: Gross RS, Thaweethai T, Kleinman LC, et al. Characterizing Long COVID in Children and Adolescents. JAMA. Published online August 21, 2024. doi:10.1001/jama.2024.12747