Omicron likely increases risk of heart attack in children, says study. Read here
- Omicron is more likely to cause upper airway infection (UAI) among children, putting them at risk of heart attack and other severe complications.
A study by researchers from the University of Colorado, Northwestern University, and Stony Brook University in the US, has revealed that the coronavirus variant Omicron is more likely, than other variants, to cause upper airway infection (UAI) among children, putting them at risk of heart attack and other severe complications.
The study was conducted by reading and analyzing data from the National Covid Cohort Collaborative pertaining to 18,849 children under age 19 who were hospitalised with Covid-19.
The study was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics last week.
The study found that the Omicron variant is likely to cause Upper Airway Infection (UAI) in younger children. The study showed that Omicron induced UAI in younger children with the mean age of hospitalised children falling from about four years and five months during the pre-Omicron period to about two years and one month during the Omicron period.
The researchers conducted the study to determine if cases of UAI among children increased when Omicron became the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant in the US.
The proportion of children with a pediatric complex chronic condition was not significantly different in the pre-Omicron period compared with the Omicron period, they said.
Overall, 21.1% of children hospitalised with both Covid-19 and UAI developed severe disease requiring intubation, where a tube is inserted into the lungs to assist with breathing.
"Children with severe UAI are at risk of cardiac arrest from rapid-onset upper airway obstruction. They may require therapies typically provided in intensive care units, including frequent administration of nebulised racemic epinephrine, helium-oxygen mixtures, and intubation," the authors of the study study noted.
Nebulised racemic epinephrine is typically reserved for patients in the hospital setting with moderate-to-severe respiratory distress.
"While the rate of SARS-CoV-2 pediatric UAI is not overwhelmingly high, understanding this new clinical phenotype and the potential for acute upper airway obstruction may help guide therapeutic decision-making," they said.
The Omicron strain of SARS-CoV-2 became dominant in the US the week ending December 25, 2021.
The higly transmissible variant is known to cause lower severity disease than the Delta variant, the researchers noted.
This may be because Omicron replicates less efficiently in lung cells and more efficiently in the conducting airways, they said.
The researchers acknowledged some limitation of this analysis, including that children who are still hospitalised are not represented in the study, and the frequency of severe disease observed in the Omicron period may be an underestimate.
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Business NewsScienceHealthOmicron likely increases risk of heart attack in children, says study. Read here
First Published:18 Apr 2022, 05:10 PM IST
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