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Clinical Findings and Treatments of 21 Children with COVID‐19: A Comparison with Their Families
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  • Herui Li,
  • Yiming Ma,
  • Zihang Zeng,
  • Huihui Zeng,
  • Zhiguo Zhou,
  • Qimi Liu,
  • Peng Huang,
  • Wenlong Liu,
  • Mingyan Jiang,
  • Ping Chen,
  • Yan Chen
Herui Li
Second Xiangya Hospital

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Yiming Ma
Second Xiangya Hospital
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Zihang Zeng
Second Xiangya Hospital
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Huihui Zeng
Second Xiangya Hospital
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Zhiguo Zhou
First Hospital of Changsha
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Qimi Liu
The second people's hospital of Guilin
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Peng Huang
Zhuzhou Central Hospital
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Wenlong Liu
Yueyang Second People’s Hospital
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Mingyan Jiang
Xiangtan Central Hospital
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Ping Chen
Second Xiangya Hospital
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Yan Chen
Second Xiangya Hospital
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Abstract

Objective: To deepen the understanding of clinical characteristics of pediatric patients with COVID-19. Methods: Retrospective analysis was executed among 21 children and their 38 families with laboratory-conformed novel coronavirus disease in five designated hospitals. Results: In total of 21 children (10 males and 11 females) aged from 1 to 17 years, 90.5% were from 18 family clusters and admitted to designated hospitals 2 days after illness onset, shorter than the adults. Besides 5 asymptomatic cases, pediatric patients mainly performed as fever (66.7%), cough (19.0%) and expectoration (14.3%). Among the 38 adult patients, the major symptoms included fever (63.2%), cough (63.2%), expectoration (44.7%), fatigue (6.8%), chill (15.8%) and dizziness (15.8%). Most cases had normal (76.2%, 68.4%) or decreased (19.0%, 26.3%) leucocytes, nearly half of children showed decreased neutrophils. 15 children and 32 adults had pulmonary involvement, consisted of ground-glass opacity (57.1%, 60.5%), spots (14.3%, 23.7%), stripes (14.3%, 7.9%) and patchy shadow (9.5%, 36.8%). All adults received antiviral therapy: lopinavir/ritonavir (92.1%), interferon (76.3%), arbidol (71.1%), chloroquine (18.4%) and ribavirin (10.5%). 16 children used interferon; 12 took lopinavir/ritonavir; 7 were given arbidol; two received ribavirin. All patients had been recovered and discharged with duration of admission 4-47 days (median 17 days). Conclusions: Pediatric patients with COVID-19 presented as milder symptoms and limited lung lesions than adults. Laboratory abnormalities were atypical in mild patients, neutropenia may be a potential characteristic of children. Efficiency of antiviral therapy need to be further investigated.