M.K. ISKHAKOVA¹, N.I. PENKINA¹, M.A. IVANOVA²

¹Izhevsk State Medical Academy, Izhevsk

²Russian Research Institute of Health, Moscow

 Contact details:

Penkina N.I. — MD, Professor, Professor of the Department of Pediatrics and Neonatology

Address: 281 Kommunarov St., 426034 Izhevsk, Russian Federation, tel.: +7 (3412) 65-81-67, e-mail: nad.penkina@yandex.ru

 In different age groups, the course of COVID-19 has varying degrees of severity, with or without complications depending on many factors, and primarily on the patients’ age.

The purpose was to reveal the peculiarities of clinical and laboratory manifestations of COVID-19 in newborns, infants, and young children.

Material and methods. We analyzed clinical and laboratory manifestations of COVID-19 coronavirus infection in children hospitalized in the Republican Children’s Clinical Hospital of the Udmurt Republic during 2020–2022. The study included 553 children diagnosed with COVID-19, including 75 newborns, 426 infants, and 52 children aged 1–3 years. Features of clinical and laboratory manifestations were studied by analyzing medical records of hospitalized children. Analytical and statistical research methods were used. Statistical data were processed using an online calculator https://medstatistic.ru/calculators.html

Results. The incidence of COVID-19 in children was increasing in 2020-2022. The proportion of children aged 0–3 years in the incidence of COVID-19 was 1.3% in 2020, 2.1% in 2021, and 3.9% in 2022. The main clinical manifestations of COVID-19 in children aged 0–3 years were fever, pneumonia, cardiopathy, enterocolitis, and infectious toxicosis. A combination of respiratory, gastrointestinal, and cardiovascular lesions was observed in half of the patients. The severity of COVID-19 course was influenced by comorbidities, high pathogenic microflora contamination of nasopharynx, intestine, and herpesvirus infections. The patients were treated according to clinical recommendations. Reprofiling of medical organizations and changes in the routing of patients allowed avoiding fatal outcomes.

Conclusions. Coronavirus infection shows age-related and clinical and laboratory features in children of the first three years of life. The disease severity depends on concomitant pathology, pathogenic microflora, and herpesvirus infection.

Key words: COVID-19, newborns, infants, infants and young children, severity of course.

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