ABSTRACT
Background: Data on demographics, clinical presentation and outcome of COVID-19 in children is increasing day by day. Studies done in Europe states infected children develop less severe disease with a low case fatality rate, no such review is available from Asia. Methods: Adhering to the PRISMA (Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) guidelines a systemic review of the literature was performed looking for clinical characteristics of COVID-19 in the Asian pediatric population searching (PUBMED, SCOPUS, MEDLINE, and WHO -19 databases) from 01 January 2020 to 15 September 2020 to find any relevant article with medical subject headings (MeSH) terms like COVID-19, clinical characteristics, children, Asia, demography, outcome, management were used in different combinations. Results: We identified 26 case series across Asian countries consisting of 1664 pediatric patients. Asymptomatic children were 14.9 %. Fever 45.65 % and cough 32.62% were the most common symptoms. Contact history with confirmed COVID-19 positive children was 70.21%. Respiratory coinfection and other co morbidities were present in was present at 36.49 % and 14.09 % children respectively. Abnormal x-ray was observed in 52.1% children and ground-glass opacity were seen among 43.71% of abnormal CT scans. Abnormal laboratory data noted were leucocyte and lymphocytes count, C-reactive protein (CRP), Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and Procalcitonin. One death from COVID-19 was reported from our review. Conclusion: Children mostly acquired infection from adults, the course of the disease is usually milder, they have a good prognosis even with associated respiratory infections and co morbidities, and mortality rate is almost nil from Asia due to COVID -19 in our review.