ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the epidemiological characteristics, clinical features, treatment and short-term prognosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children.Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted in children with SARS-CoV-2 admitted to twelve hospitals in eight cities in Hunan province, China, from January 26, 2020 to June 30, 2020.Results A total of 48 children were enrolled in this study. 11 cases (23%) were asymptomatic, 15 cases (31%) were mild, 20 cases (42%) were moderate, and 2 cases (4%) were severe. No children were critical requiring intensive care. The most common symptom was fever (42%), cough (40%), fatigue (17%) and diarrhea (10%). The total peripheral blood leukocytes count decreased in two case (4%), Lymphocytopenia was present in 5 cases (10%). There were abnormal chest CT changes in 22 children (46%), including 15 (68%) with patchy ground glass opacity. In addition to supportive treatment, 41 children (85%) received antiviral therapy, 11 patients and (23%) were treated with antibiotics, 2 children (4%) were treated with methylprednisolone and IVIG. There was no death occurred.Conclusions Most children with SARS CoV-2 infection in Hunan province were asymptomatic, mild or moderate. Severe cases are rare. Close family contact was the main route of infection. The younger the age, the less obvious symptoms for children might be. Epidemiological history, nucleic acid test and chest imaging were important tools for the diagnosis in children.
Subject(s)
Lymphopenia , Fever , Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome , Fatigue , DiarrheaABSTRACT
Background A new infectious disease, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been first reported during December 2019 in Wuhan, China, cases have been exported to other cities and abroad rapidly. Hunan is the neighboring province of Wuhan, a series of preventive and control measures were taken to control the outbreak of COVID-19. It is critical to assess these measures on the epidemic progression for the benefit of global expectation.Method: A Susceptible-exposed-infections/asymptomatic-removed (SEIAR) model was established to evaluate the effect of preventive measures. Berkeley Madonna 8.3.18 was employed for the model simulation and prediction, and the curve-fitting problem was solved by Runge-Kutta fourth-order method.Results In this study, we found that Rt was 2.71 from January 21 to 27 and reduced to 0.21 after January 27, 2020. If measures have not been fully launched, patients in Hunan would reach the maximum (8.96 million) on March 25, 2020, and end in about 208 days; when measures have been fully launched, patients in Hunan would just reach the maximum (699) on February 9, 2020, and end in about 56 days, which was very closed to the actual situation.Conclusion The outbreak of COVID-19 in Hunan, China has been well controlled under current measures, full implementation of measures could reduce the peak value, short the time to peak and duration of the outbreak effectively, which could provide a reference for controlling of COVID-19 for other countries.