Abstract
Introduction: Individuals across all age are susceptible to COVID-19, and this disease has spread globally, it may continue to pose a long-term threat to public health. For this reason, a complete understanding of the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 can help control the disease’s spread and improve patients’ recovery rate during this pandemic. The death rate is crucial in turning an infection into a public concern and pandemic risk. We aimed to evaluate the epidemiological profile and prognosis of pediatric patients with COVID-19 at Tabriz Children’s Hospital, Iran.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of children with suspicious COVID-19 diagnoses in northwest Iran between 2019 and 2023. Six hundred sixty-two children who are suspected of having COVID-19 due to respiratory and other clinical symptoms according to the national protocol, as well as MISC patients (multi -System inflammatory following COVID-19, including patients with gastrointestinal, pulmonary, cardiovascular symptoms, and increased IgM and IgG levels) admitted to the COVID ward, were included in the study.
Results: The average age of the patients was 48 months, with a male-to-female ratio of 3:2. 62.3% of patients had a history of contact with infected family members. Most of the patients were delivered by cesarean section. The average incubation period of the disease was eight days. The disease was confirmed positive in 15% of patients by the PCR test. 46.5% of patients had severe disease. The most common clinical symptoms of the patients were fever and cough. 40.3% of patients with COVID-19 had an underlying developmental disease. The most common treatments for patients involved antibiotic and antiviral therapies.
Conclusion: We conclude that in most children with COVID-19, the origin of the infection was typically family exposure, and they often had a prolonged incubation period. Most patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus are asymptomatic or present with moderate to severe symptoms; the most common clinical symptoms are high fever and cough.