Abstract
Objective: Children with COVID-19 are reported to get the infection from
an adult contact, with minimal secondary transmission from children.
Children do not appear to be efficient transmitters of infection. Common
symptoms in adults infected with COVID-19 include fever, dry cough and
fatigue. The symptoms in children are more atypical than in adults, and
coughing is lighter. Methods: Children aged 0-18 who was admitted to the
emergency department from March 20 to September 15, 2020 and had
confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 with a positive real-time
reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were included
in the study. Results: RT-PCR tests were done in 835 children with
suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection and the test was positive in 178 (21.3%)
children. The most common symptoms at the onset of illness were fever
(67.4%), headache (41.1%), cough (36.6%), sore throat (25.7%),
fatigue (22.9%), myalgia (22.9%) and diarrhea (20.6%). One hundred
and seven (61.1%) of the patients were infected by close contact with
family members diagnosed with COVID-19, 35 (20%) of the patients were
infected via close contact with non-family members diagnosed with
COVID-19, 11 (6.3%) of the patients had a history of exposure in an
epidemic area, including wedding hall, condolence house and shopping
center and 23 (13.1%) of the patients with unknown source of infection.
Conclusion: COVID-19 infection is seen to be milder and cause less
hospitalizations and patient deaths in children. Crowded indoor
environments are the main centers of the spread of the outbreak and
children are unlikely to be the main source of infection of the
pandemic.