Coronavirus update: Children are silent spreaders of COVID-19: Study

The infected children were shown to have a significantly higher level of virus in their airways than hospitalised adults in ICUs for COVID-19 treatment, they said.

PTI

August 21, 2020 / 08:02 IST

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Children play a larger role in the community spread of COVID-19 than previously thought, according to a study which found that the younger people may not be as likely to become seriously ill as adults, but they can spread infection and bring the virus into their homes. The study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, also challenges the current hypothesis that because children have lower numbers of immune receptors for SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, this makes them less likely to become infected or seriously ill.

In the study of 192 children ages 0-22, 49 children tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and an additional 18 children had late-onset, COVID-19-related illness, according to the researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the US.

The infected children were shown to have a significantly higher level of virus in their airways than hospitalised adults in ICUs for COVID-19 treatment, they said.

"I was surprised by the high levels of virus we found in children of all ages, especially in the first two days of infection," said Lael Yonker, from MGH, and lead author of the study.

"I was not expecting the viral load to be so high. You think of a hospital, and of all of the precautions taken to treat severely ill adults, but the viral loads of these hospitalised patients are significantly lower than a 'healthy child' who is walking around with a high SARS-CoV-2 viral load," Yonker said.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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