Children may be just as vulnerable to coronavirus as adults, study finds
- Researchers looking at cases in Shenzhen say 2 per cent were kids under 15 at early stage of outbreak, but later it rose to 13 per cent
- Another study finds that among patients’ close contacts, children under 10 had nearly the same chance of becoming infected as other age groups
The research on community transmission of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, showed a “sharply increasing proportion of infected children” as the outbreak has progressed.
Scientists analysed 365 patients in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen – including 74 clusters comprising 183 cases. Children aged under 15 made up just 2 per cent of the cases before January 24. But from January 25 to February 5, the proportion of children went up to 13 per cent.
According to the researchers, the findings implied that with more exposure to the virus, children’s risk of becoming infected could substantially rise. Transmission of the virus within families was also a major factor, they said.
The results of the study – by researchers from two Shenzhen hospitals and the Southern University of Science and Technology – were published on Wednesday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Meanwhile, another study, led by Qifang Bi at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US, found that among the close contacts of confirmed patients, there was no significant association between the probability of infection and age of the index case.