How often are the youngest infected with corona?
A study carried out in Bavaria refutes previous assumptions.
In Bavaria, significantly more children were infected in the second corona wave than PCR tests showed.
Munich researchers who discovered this blame virus mutations in Bavaria.
But also the school openings - and now have clear demands on politics.
Neuherberg - In the second corona wave, three to four times more children in Bavaria were infected with Sars-CoV-2 than reported via PCR tests.
At the end of the period, around eight times more children had corona antibodies than after the first wave in spring 2020. This is the result of a study by the Helmholtz Zentrum München with children up to 10 years of age.
The researchers, led by Anette-Gabriele Ziegler, report on the test period between October 2020 and February 2021. The preschool children examined at that time therefore had an antibody frequency of 5.6 percent.
For school children (tested from November 2020 to February 2021) the value was even 8.4 percent.
"The fact that the frequency of infection in children is higher than reported by the PCR-based virus monitoring is probably due in part to asymptomatic cases in childhood," the institute quotes the first author of the study, Markus Hippich, on its website.
Corona in Bavaria: Children infected much more often than assumed - mutations as a possible cause
Of 446 children who tested positive in the second wave, a good 93 percent completed questionnaires on symptoms.
The result: 68 percent of the children with antibodies showed no corona symptoms.
For school children it was around 51 percent.
What is the reason for this sharp increase during the second wave?
The researchers suspect:
A generally higher virus exposure in autumn and winter
The school openings
New, more contagious corona mutations
Study leader Anette-Gabriele Ziegler explained: "It is often assumed that children are less susceptible to Sars-CoV-2 infection than adults." However, the data on this are sparse.
"The results of our study clearly show that both preschool and school-age children are susceptible to Sars-CoV-2 infection." She advocated appropriate measures in daycare centers and schools.
The scientists actually wanted to examine the children for early type 1 diabetes.
These tests take blood samples.
They later decided to also carry out Sars-CoV-2 antibody tests "in order to make this valuable study infrastructure also usable for combating the corona pandemic".
They did not find a connection between presymptomatic type 1 diabetes and a Covid 19 illness.
(frs)
