Children are just as likely as adults to become infected with the new disease-causing coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Covid-19, but are less likely to show severe symptoms, as reported by Chinese and American scientists.
The new study, one of the most detailed published to date on the spread of the virus, based on data from China, sheds more light on the role of children in the new epidemic and transmission of the virus.
Previous studies have estimated that children are much less likely to develop severe symptoms when they become infected than older people. But so far it has not been clear whether children have a harder time catching the coronavirus or whether their body fights the infection more effectively.
"Children are just as likely to be infected, but not seriously ill," said Justin Lesler, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in Baltimore, according to Nature, who led the new study. epidemiologists. The researchers did the relevant pre-publication on medRxiv.
The uniqueness of the new research lies in the fact that it focused not only on patients infected with the virus, but also on a large number of close contacts of patients, some of whom were also stuck, while others were not. American and Chinese scientists follow 391 people diagnosed with infection Covid-19, as well as their 1.286 close contacts based on the respective tracking.
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Children under the age of 10 who are exposed to the virus have been found to have almost the same risk of becoming infected as older people. Of the young children in the close contact group of patients, 7% were subsequently diagnosed with the virus, compared with 8% among older individuals.
The study also found that those who live in the same house as someone who has contracted the coronavirus and is therefore in close contact with it are about six times more likely to become infected than those who had contact with the patient but did not. they lived with him.
Source: newsbomb.cy