Among the pandemic of coronavirus infection (COVID-19), there is a high risk of developing a major infection. These include the elderly and those with underlying health conditions.
Children are prevented from developing a serious disease, but they can still be infected. They are tagged as spreaders of the acute respiratory respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) syndrome, the virus that causes COVID-19, because they are mostly asymptomatic.
To determine the increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in households with children, researchers at the Statens Serum Institute in Denmark compared the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection between families with children and those without young children.
In the scan, published on the pre-print server medRxiv *, the researchers found a small but much higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in households with young children between 10 months and five years of age. However, recent exposure to human coronaviruses does not reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in households with young children.
COVID-19 in children
Infection with SARS-CoV-2 has limited treatment options, and immunity to it is less. Nevertheless, recent exposure to the distribution of human coronaviruses, such as OC43 and NL63, is known to be common among young children in winter. These diseases may previously protect against SARS-CoV-2.
Also, studies showed serological evidence of pre-existing SARS-CoV-2 binding antibodies and T cell immunity in people not infected with SARS-CoV-2. This may be due to pre-existing human coronavirus (HCoV) infection.
However, like any other coronavirus, the immunity is not permanent, and it may become seasonal. Therefore, recent exposure to HCoVs is not known to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection or disease severity.
The study
To determine the risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 in households with young children, the researchers followed all adults in Denmark between the ages of 18 and 60 from February 27 to November 15, 2020. A total of 3,079,736 adults participated. in the study.
The researchers used the Danish Civil Registration System, which provides demographic information about the population, including family members and children.
The researchers obtained data on PCR-tests for SARS-CoV-2 through MiBA, the Danish Microbiology Database, as well as population information.
Of the 449,915 adults in Denmark living in households with young children, 5,761 were positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, among the 2.63 million adults without young children at home, 33,788 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
The team noted that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in adults living with children compared with those without children had a risk ratio of 1.05. Regarding hospitalization among those infected, the team found a nonsignificant reduced risk of hospitalization of SARS-CoV-2 among adults living in households with young children compared with those without children in the hospital. house.
They concluded that living in a home with young children was not associated with a lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting that there was no strong protective effect from recent exposure to human coronaviruses other.
Relative risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in adults living in households with children by age of child and total number of children in the household compared with one child at six years of age. Adjust for age, gender, urbanization, ethnicity and comorbidities.
The study was the first to examine the house features and disease of SARS-CoV-2, which recorded a total population of more than three million people. The study also captured the majority of SARS-CoV-2 cases in Denmark, a country with one of the highest polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test rates in Europe.
There is also a higher risk of infection when it reopens in Denmark, where day care facilities have opened.
“In summary, we found no evidence of an increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in adults living with young children,” the researchers concluded.
“On the other hand, we found a high, slightly higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infections, which, however, was reduced when we cared for older children in the same household,” he said. them.
To date, European COVID-19 cases continue to rise, with the United Kingdom reporting the highest number of infections. The UK has over 4.2 million cases and more than 124,000 deaths. Globally, the total number of cases has risen to 115 million.
* Important message
medRxiv publish preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be seen as final, guiding health-related clinical practice / behavior, or be treated as information established.
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