cohort·pediatrics, infectious disease, epidemiology, public health, observational study·PMC10266603
Clinical epidemiology of COVID-19 among hospitalized children in rural western Kenya
PLOS Global Public Health · 22 authors, 13 centres
AI SUMMARY
FIDELITY 100%
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This prospective cohort study of hospitalized children in Kenya found that fever, cough, and lethargy were common but non-specific symptoms of COVID-19, and that mortality among confirmed cases was 14.5% with no viable SARS-CoV-2 cultured from stool samples.
Full summary
748 CHARS
The commonest clinical features among cases were fever (76%), cough (35%), nausea and vomiting (35%), and lethargy (35%), but there was no statistically significant difference in sociodemographic or clinical characteristics between positive and negative participants. Among the positive cohort, 8 of 55 (14.5%) children died, with seven deaths occurring during the inpatient period. The study is limited by its small sample size, hospital-based setting which may limit generalizability, and observational design preventing causal inference. The findings suggest that syndromic diagnosis of COVID-19 in children is challenging due to symptom overlap with other common pediatric illnesses, and that fecal shedding of viable SARS-CoV-2 may be limited.
