Retrospective study of 18,561 paediatric covid-19 patients belonging to different age groups

Introduction: Compare to adults, there are relatively few studies on COVID-19 infection in children, preliminary reports suggest that children (≤18 years of age) have relatively lower odds of adverse clinical outcomes associated with COVID-19. Objective: To identify the COVID-19 prevalence in different age groups of paediatric Patients. Materials and Method: This is a retrospective study done in tertiary care hospital of western Rajasthan from march 2021 to June 2021. All children 18 and under who had family or social history of COVID-19 exposure were included in study. ConfIrmation of COVID-19 was done using RT-PCR. Result: Total 18,561 cases of 18yr and below of ages were screened out of which, 395 infants (0-1yr), 798 toddlers (1-3yr), 917 preschoolers (3-5yr), 3633 middle childhood (6-11yr), 3413 young teenagers (12-14yr), 9404 teenagers (15-18yr). Conclusion: The cases of COVID-19 are more among teenagers as compared to other age groups, followed by young teenagers and middle childhood. Though studies shows that minimum reporting of cases from paediatric age group but it is important to be cautious and continue to screen COVID -19 in paediatric age group as this SARS CoV-2 has shown great capability to mutate which leads to generation of new variants which can be detrimental to paediatric population.