Testing children for COVID-19 may help curb the risk of transmission of this deadly virus, new study shows.
Detecting between 10% to 20% of silent SARS-CoV-2 infections among children, within three days of infection, could reduce attack rates to less than 5%, according to a new study. The simulation-based study defined attack rate as the proportion of a population that was infected with the COVID-19 virus within 1 year and assumed that between 40% to 60 % of adults were vaccinated, whereas children were not being vaccinated.
Their results, which were obtained under a very realistic scenario for most countries, highlight the importance of considering children in any efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19.
“In this simulation modelling study of a synthetic US population, in the absence of vaccine availability for children, a targeted approach to rapidly identify silent COVID-19 infections in this age group was estimated to significantly mitigate disease burden,” the authors concluded.
An important implication of this study is that there needs to be a way to stop silent transmissions among children, and that vaccinating adults is just not enough to contain viral outbreaks in the short term.
A silent pandemic?
Efforts to curb the transmission of the COVID-19 virus in Australia and elsewhere in the world have focused on the use of face masks, vaccination and social distancing, among other practices. But all efforts have been largely targeted to the adult population.
Children, on the other hand, are widely considered to be at low risk of serious health outcomes from COVID-19. This notion is backed by a recent study, published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health last month, showing that COVID-19 related mortality is rare among children from the USA, UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, and South Korea.
However, further research is likely needed, as the BBC reported back in April 15 that 1,300 babies had died from the virus in Brazil. In turn, Reuters reported that over 25% of all Indian children between the 10 and 17 years of age may have already contracted the virus. Nor India or Brazil were included in the analyses by The Lancet report mentioned above.
An emerging idea is that children may be acting as silent spreaders of the virus, potentially infecting adults, even before developing symptoms. In India, Subash Rao, a consultant paediatrician from Navi Mumbai said that the SARS-CoV-2 may have mutated into a more virulent form for children.
“The second wave of Covid is known to affect the children much more than in the first wave,” he said in a news report. “Also, a reverse trend is being seen that is, children develop symptoms first, and then adults are getting it from them,” he added.
Taken together, the findings of the new simulation study and the growing statistics suggesting children are increasingly being infected by SARS-CoV-2 suggest the need to re-evaluate our views and actions towards containing this pandemic.