Consequences of Corona: Long Covid in children more often than expected
Created: 2022-11-15, 8:30 p.m
By: Natalie Hull Drawbar
Long Covid or Post Covid is now almost as feared as the corona infection itself. There are also more and more children showing symptoms.
Once a corona infection has been overcome, very few of those affected can go back to their everyday lives as usual.
Even people who have been vaccinated three times and people with a mild course often complain about exhaustion and tiredness days and weeks later.
If the symptoms last longer than four weeks after the corona infection, experts speak of Long Covid, with after-effects of more than twelve weeks after infection with Post Covid.
Adults seem to be more affected so far, but the number of children with Long Covid symptoms is increasing, according to medics.
Consequences of Corona: Long Covid could so far affect about a quarter of the children suffering from Corona
More and more children in Germany are also suffering from Long Covid as a result of a corona infection.
(Iconic image) © imagebroker/begsteiger/Imago
Long and post Covid is of increasing concern to scientists and medical professionals as the number of adults and children affected increases.
There are four causes that should contribute to people suffering from Long Covid as a late consequence of Corona - women and men are affected differently.
Don't miss anything: You can find everything to do with health in the regular newsletter from our partner 24vita.de.
Children often suffer from PIMS (Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome) as a result of a corona infection.
PIMS is a sudden overreaction of the immune system after a corona infection and is characterized by a long-lasting fever and severe abdominal pain.
However, a more concrete validation of long-term health effects from the SARS-CoV-2 infection in children requires further long-term studies, "the data situation for children and adolescents is still very limited", according to the
Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
.
In the largest follow-up study to date of children and adolescents with hospital treatment due to a corona infection, around a quarter of the children and adolescents still had at least one (post-)corona symptom several months after discharge.
In a meta-analysis, children after SARS-CoV-2 infection showed a significantly increased risk of cognitive disorders, headaches, loss of smell, sore throat and sore eyes, according to
the RKI.
Long Covid in children
Similar to adults, children also complain most frequently about symptoms of extreme exhaustion, a fatigue associated with tiredness.
Other consequences of a corona infection can be sleep disorders, headaches, coughing, concentration disorders, smell and taste disorders, abdominal pain and tachycardia, as the cardiologist Dr.
medical
Daniel Vilser, Senior Physician at the Clinic for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at Jena University Hospital, reports on practical experience.
also read
16:8 diet: fitness expert explains how you can lose up to five kilos a week with intermittent fasting
Peeing in the shower: the family doctor sees no problem with "urinating in the shower"
Consequences of Corona: Long Covid in children more often than expected
A recent study by the Technical University in Dresden shows that children after a corona infection are far more likely to suffer from persistent tiredness, exhaustion or coughing, while adults mostly report smell and taste disorders, fever and shortness of breath as long Covid symptoms.
Heart palpitations and a high resting heart rate can also be late effects of Corona.
For the Dresden study, data from over 156,000 people suffering from corona were evaluated: 11,950 children and adolescents up to the age of 17 and over 145,184 adults up to the age of 49 who were infected with Covid in 2020.
What was shown, among other things, was that more than 30 percent of the young people after an acute corona infection still complained about long Covid symptoms, compared to the control group, which had not experienced any corona infection.
These viruses and bacteria make us sick
View photo gallery
Statistically speaking, long-term effects of long-Covid are much less common in children and adolescents than in adults, but doctors and clinics are increasingly reacting to the post-Covid phenomenon in young people by setting up appropriate long-covid outpatient clinics, such as the MRI Chronic Fatigue Center (MCFC) of the Munich Clinic.
This article only contains general information on the respective health topic and is therefore not intended for self-diagnosis, treatment or medication. In no way does it replace a visit to the doctor. Unfortunately, our editors are not allowed to answer individual questions about clinical pictures.
