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THURSDAY, Oct. 3, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Children and adolescents seem to have lower susceptibility to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) than adults, according to a review published online Sept. 25 in JAMA Pediatrics<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Russell M. Viner, Ph.D., from the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health in London, and colleagues conducted a systematic review to examine the susceptibility to and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among children and adolescents versus adults. Data were included for 32 studies with 41,640 children and adolescents and 268,945 adults, including 18 contact-tracing studies and 14 population-screening studies.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that the pooled odds ratio was 0.56 for being an infected contact in children versus adults, with considerable heterogeneity (I\u00b2 = 94.6 percent). Minimal transmission was found from child or teacher index cases in three school-based contact-tracing studies. Population-screening studies had heterogeneous findings and were not suited for meta-analysis. Most studies were consistent with lower seroprevalence for children versus adults and similar seroprevalence for adolescents and adults.<\/p>\n
“We remain early in our knowledge of SARS-CoV-2, and further data are urgently needed, particularly from low-income settings,” the authors write. “Studies that investigate secondary infections from child or adolescent index cases compared with secondary infections from adult index cases are particularly needed to assess transmission.”<\/p>\n
One author of the accompanying editorial disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.<\/p>\n
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