Corona virus: why children survive infection?

The news of the infection of a newborn in China with the Coruna virus, on February 5, just 30 hours after his birth, spread quickly around the world.

This was the smallest case recorded, so far, since the outbreak that killed more than 900 patients and infected more than 40,000 people, mostly in China (although cases have been recorded in more than 30 other countries).

But very few of these injuries were among the children.

The most recent epidemiological study, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, included an audit of hospitalized patients at the Jinitan Hospital in Wuhan, the city that is the epicenter.

The study found that the ages of more than half of those infected with the virus ranged between 40 and 59 years, and that only 10 percent of those infected were under the age of thirty-nine.

The researchers concluded that “injuries among children were rare,” but what is the reason for this?

Low incidence in children

There are many theories trying to explain this phenomenon, but experts in the field of public health have not yet been able to explain why there are few injuries among children.

“For reasons that are not precisely clear to us, it appears that the children either avoided the infection completely, or that their injuries are not severe,” Ian Jones, a professor of virology at Reading University of English, told BBC.

This may mean that children develop a lighter form of the disease, so that they do not show any symptoms, which ultimately leads to their parents avoiding going to doctors or hospitals, and thus not recording their injuries.

This view is shared by a lecturer at University College London, Natalie McDermott, who says “Children above 5 years old and teenagers have immune systems that can fight viruses. They may become infected, but the disease will have lighter or no symptoms at all.” .

This is not unique to the current prevalence of the Coronavirus in China. There are precedents. In the spread of SARS, which was also caused by a Coronavirus, in China in 2003, it killed nearly 800 people (10 percent of the 8,000 cases). The incidence among children was also low.

In 2007, the US Epidemic Control Center announced that 135 children were infected with the SARS virus, “but no deaths have been reported between children and adolescents.”

Did the New Year holidays protect children from injury?

McDermott also believes that children may not have been exposed to the virus as adults, as the infection started during the Chinese New Year holidays when schools were closed.

Almost all Chinese provinces have decided to keep schools closed. In some cases, this situation will continue until the end of February.

“Adults are more likely to act as carers, so they protect children or send them to other places if someone is injured at home,” says McDermott.

McDermott believes that this picture may change “if the disease spreads wider and increases the risk of infection in society in general.”

However, the rapid spread of the disease, to date, has not been accompanied by any increase in injuries among children.

Once again, the SARS crisis provides us with an introduction to what is going on, as researchers at the American Epidemic Control Center, who have studied injuries among children, say that those under the age of 12 were the least in need of hospitalization.

Does the virus cause more severe symptoms in adults? From children?

Despite the small number of children confirmed to be infected with the virus, experts do not believe that this is due to the fact that they have not been infected.

The most likely explanation is that the current epidemic is an addition to diseases that afflict adults more severely than children, such as chickenpox, for example.

“This is more likely than saying that children have some immunity to the Corona virus,” Andrew Andrew Freeman, an infectious disease expert at Cardiff University in Wales, told the BBC. “It may also be because the authorities are not monitoring cases of asymptomatic children.” Or those who show only mild symptoms. “

The Epidemiologist, a statistician at Oxford and Imperial Universities in London, agrees with this suggestion, pointing to evidence from the spread of the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong that “our colleagues’ conclusion indicates that the disease does not have a dangerous trend in children, And so they were less affected (than adults). “

Pre-existing diseases

It is known that adults with pre-existing conditions that put stress on their immune systems – conditions such as diabetes and heart disease for example – are more likely to develop this type of epidemic.

“Pneumonia (which is one of the results of infection with the Coronavirus) mostly affects those who already have weak immunity because their health condition is poor or they are nearing the end of their lives. This also happens with influenza and other diseases,” says Ian Jones. respiratory system diseases”.

It was found that about half of the patients whose cases were studied at the Jintan Hospital were suffering from other chronic diseases.

But is it not known that children spread viruses?

Ian Jones says that children are already vulnerable to infection with and spreading viruses, and they are often referred to as “excessive spreaders” of viruses.

The British expert says they “transmit respiratory infections easily, as everyone who deals with children in kindergarten knows.”

So it is expected that we will see a large number of children on the lists of infected – and deceased – coronaviruses, but this did not happen at least for the time being.

It may be due to the fact that children have strong immune systems that stimulate the fight against viruses, or that the disease itself appears less severe in children than it appears in adults and therefore children are not taken to hospitals seeking treatment, and are not examined and their cases recorded.

The picture may appear more clearly as research continues in the current epidemic.

But the reason may be that children are less susceptible to infection due to school closures and the care of their parents. So the truth will emerge when the children of China return to school.

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