TY - JOUR
T1 - Illness duration and symptom profile in symptomatic UK school-aged children tested for SARS-CoV-2
AU - Molteni, Erika
AU - Sudre, Carole H
AU - Canas, Liane S
AU - Bhopal, Sunil S
AU - Hughes, Robert C
AU - Antonelli, Michela
AU - Murray, Benjamin
AU - Kläser, Kerstin
AU - Kerfoot, Eric
AU - Chen, Liyuan
AU - Deng, Jie
AU - Hu, Christina
AU - Selvachandran, Somesh
AU - Read, Kenneth
AU - Capdevila Pujol, Joan
AU - Hammers, Alexander
AU - Spector, Tim D
AU - Ourselin, Sebastien
AU - Steves, Claire J
AU - Modat, Marc
AU - Absoud, Michael
AU - Duncan, Emma L
N1 - Funding Information:
Ethics approval was granted by King's College London Ethics Committee (reference LRS-19/201?8210). Data for this study used proxy-reported children (aged 5?17 years), who could not give consent directly. Therefore, consent was from the proxy-reporting adult who was the app user, with governance granted to allow proxy-reported data usage in this circumstance. Full consent details, particularly pertaining to proxy-reported individuals, are provided in the appendix (p 1).
Funding Information:
This research was funded in part by the Wellcome Trust (WT213038/Z/18/Z). This work is also supported by the Wellcome Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Centre for Medical Engineering at King's College London (WT203148/Z/16/Z) and the UK Department of Health via the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre award to Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with King's College London and King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the Medical Research Council (MRC), and British Heart Foundation. SO and MM are supported by the UK Research and Innovation London Medical Imaging and Artificial Intelligence Centre for Value Based Healthcare, and the Wellcome Flagship Programme (WT213038/Z/18/Z). EM is funded by an MRC Skills Development Fellowship Scheme at King's College London. CHS is supported by the National Core Studies, an initiative funded by United Kingdom Research and Innovation, NIHR, and the Health and Safety Executive, and funded by MRC (MC_PC_20030). CHS is also supported by an Alzheimer's Society Junior Fellowship (AS-JF-170–11). Zoe Limited supported all aspects of building and running the application and service to all users worldwide. For the purpose of open access, the authors have applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - BACKGROUND: In children, SARS-CoV-2 infection is usually asymptomatic or causes a mild illness of short duration. Persistent illness has been reported; however, its prevalence and characteristics are unclear. We aimed to determine illness duration and characteristics in symptomatic UK school-aged children tested for SARS-CoV-2 using data from the COVID Symptom Study, one of the largest UK citizen participatory epidemiological studies to date.METHODS: In this prospective cohort study, data from UK school-aged children (age 5-17 years) were reported by an adult proxy. Participants were voluntary, and used a mobile application (app) launched jointly by Zoe Limited and King's College London. Illness duration and symptom prevalence, duration, and burden were analysed for children testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 for whom illness duration could be determined, and were assessed overall and for younger (age 5-11 years) and older (age 12-17 years) groups. Children with longer than 1 week between symptomatic reports on the app were excluded from analysis. Data from symptomatic children testing negative for SARS-CoV-2, matched 1:1 for age, gender, and week of testing, were also assessed.FINDINGS: 258 790 children aged 5-17 years were reported by an adult proxy between March 24, 2020, and Feb 22, 2021, of whom 75 529 had valid test results for SARS-CoV-2. 1734 children (588 younger and 1146 older children) had a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result and calculable illness duration within the study timeframe (illness onset between Sept 1, 2021, and Jan 24, 2021). The most common symptoms were headache (1079 [62·2%] of 1734 children), and fatigue (954 [55·0%] of 1734 children). Median illness duration was 6 days (IQR 3-11) versus 3 days (2-7) in children testing negative, and was positively associated with age (Spearman's rank-order rs 0·19, p<0·0001). Median illness duration was longer for older children (7 days, IQR 3-12) than younger children (5 days, 2-9). 77 (4·4%) of 1734 children had illness duration of at least 28 days, more commonly in older than younger children (59 [5·1%] of 1146 older children vs 18 [3·1%] of 588 younger children; p=0·046). The commonest symptoms experienced by these children during the first 4 weeks of illness were fatigue (65 [84·4%] of 77), headache (60 [77·9%] of 77), and anosmia (60 [77·9%] of 77); however, after day 28 the symptom burden was low (median 2 symptoms, IQR 1-4) compared with the first week of illness (median 6 symptoms, 4-8). Only 25 (1·8%) of 1379 children experienced symptoms for at least 56 days. Few children (15 children, 0·9%) in the negatively tested cohort had symptoms for at least 28 days; however, these children experienced greater symptom burden throughout their illness (9 symptoms, IQR 7·7-11·0 vs 8, 6-9) and after day 28 (5 symptoms, IQR 1·5-6·5 vs 2, 1-4) than did children who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.INTERPRETATION: Although COVID-19 in children is usually of short duration with low symptom burden, some children with COVID-19 experience prolonged illness duration. Reassuringly, symptom burden in these children did not increase with time, and most recovered by day 56. Some children who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 also had persistent and burdensome illness. A holistic approach for all children with persistent illness during the pandemic is appropriate.FUNDING: Zoe Limited, UK Government Department of Health and Social Care, Wellcome Trust, UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK Research and Innovation London Medical Imaging and Artificial Intelligence Centre for Value Based Healthcare, UK National Institute for Health Research, UK Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, and Alzheimer's Society.
AB - BACKGROUND: In children, SARS-CoV-2 infection is usually asymptomatic or causes a mild illness of short duration. Persistent illness has been reported; however, its prevalence and characteristics are unclear. We aimed to determine illness duration and characteristics in symptomatic UK school-aged children tested for SARS-CoV-2 using data from the COVID Symptom Study, one of the largest UK citizen participatory epidemiological studies to date.METHODS: In this prospective cohort study, data from UK school-aged children (age 5-17 years) were reported by an adult proxy. Participants were voluntary, and used a mobile application (app) launched jointly by Zoe Limited and King's College London. Illness duration and symptom prevalence, duration, and burden were analysed for children testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 for whom illness duration could be determined, and were assessed overall and for younger (age 5-11 years) and older (age 12-17 years) groups. Children with longer than 1 week between symptomatic reports on the app were excluded from analysis. Data from symptomatic children testing negative for SARS-CoV-2, matched 1:1 for age, gender, and week of testing, were also assessed.FINDINGS: 258 790 children aged 5-17 years were reported by an adult proxy between March 24, 2020, and Feb 22, 2021, of whom 75 529 had valid test results for SARS-CoV-2. 1734 children (588 younger and 1146 older children) had a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result and calculable illness duration within the study timeframe (illness onset between Sept 1, 2021, and Jan 24, 2021). The most common symptoms were headache (1079 [62·2%] of 1734 children), and fatigue (954 [55·0%] of 1734 children). Median illness duration was 6 days (IQR 3-11) versus 3 days (2-7) in children testing negative, and was positively associated with age (Spearman's rank-order rs 0·19, p<0·0001). Median illness duration was longer for older children (7 days, IQR 3-12) than younger children (5 days, 2-9). 77 (4·4%) of 1734 children had illness duration of at least 28 days, more commonly in older than younger children (59 [5·1%] of 1146 older children vs 18 [3·1%] of 588 younger children; p=0·046). The commonest symptoms experienced by these children during the first 4 weeks of illness were fatigue (65 [84·4%] of 77), headache (60 [77·9%] of 77), and anosmia (60 [77·9%] of 77); however, after day 28 the symptom burden was low (median 2 symptoms, IQR 1-4) compared with the first week of illness (median 6 symptoms, 4-8). Only 25 (1·8%) of 1379 children experienced symptoms for at least 56 days. Few children (15 children, 0·9%) in the negatively tested cohort had symptoms for at least 28 days; however, these children experienced greater symptom burden throughout their illness (9 symptoms, IQR 7·7-11·0 vs 8, 6-9) and after day 28 (5 symptoms, IQR 1·5-6·5 vs 2, 1-4) than did children who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.INTERPRETATION: Although COVID-19 in children is usually of short duration with low symptom burden, some children with COVID-19 experience prolonged illness duration. Reassuringly, symptom burden in these children did not increase with time, and most recovered by day 56. Some children who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 also had persistent and burdensome illness. A holistic approach for all children with persistent illness during the pandemic is appropriate.FUNDING: Zoe Limited, UK Government Department of Health and Social Care, Wellcome Trust, UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK Research and Innovation London Medical Imaging and Artificial Intelligence Centre for Value Based Healthcare, UK National Institute for Health Research, UK Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, and Alzheimer's Society.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85121259378&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S2352-4642(21)00198-X
DO - 10.1016/S2352-4642(21)00198-X
M3 - Article
C2 - 34358472
SN - 2352-4650
VL - 5
SP - 708
EP - 718
JO - The Lancet. Child & adolescent health
JF - The Lancet. Child & adolescent health
IS - 10
ER -
