The coronavirus can leave more than 40% of children hospitalized for COVID-19 with headaches and other lingering neurological symptoms, a new study claims.
And the kids who developed these headaches or experienced an altered mental status known as acute encephalopathy were more likely to need intensive care, said researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), in Pennsylvania.
“The SARS-CoV-2 virus can affect pediatric patients in different ways: It can cause acute disease, where symptomatic illness comes on soon after infection, or children may develop an inflammatory condition called MIS-C weeks after clearing the virus,” said lead study author Dr. Ericka Fink. She is a pediatric intensivist at the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
“Thankfully, mortality rates in children are low for both acute SARS-CoV-2 and MIS-C,” Fink said. “But this study shows that the frequency of neurological manifestations is high — and it may actually be higher than what we found because these symptoms are not always documented in the medical record or accessible. For example, we can’t know if a baby is having a headache.”
The research team is now doing a follow-up study to determine whether the COVID-19 virus or MIS-C can have lasting effects on children’s health or quality of life.
