There has not yet been an agreed consensus for a specific paediatric Long COVID case definition, but work is underway. A paediatric study into long covid called the CLOCK study showed that 14% of children who contract COVID-19 can go on to develop long covid. Long covid in children can have a significant impact on the whole family, so it’s important to seek support as soon as possible.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published data from the UK Coronavirus Infection Survey which looked at how many people showed symptoms five weeks after infection. The survey showed that almost 13 per cent of children in the survey aged between two and 11 and 14.5 per cent of children aged 12 to 16 reported certain symptoms including fatigue, cough, headache, muscle aches or loss of taste or smell five weeks after falling ill with Covid-19. But it isn’t clear from the published data how many children these figures were based on.
The ONS also published data which showed that one in 10 secondary school pupils reported ongoing symptoms more than four weeks after contracting Covid-19. A similar proportion of pupils who had a suspected (but not confirmed) Covid-19 infection also reported that they had symptoms that lasted more than four weeks. The most common symptoms were “weakness/ tiredness”, reported by nearly half of pupils who had lingering symptoms. Six out of 10 pupils with long Covid symptoms said it limited their ability to carry out day to day activities. The data was based on a survey of 2,326 pupils in schools in England from 2-26 July 2021.
Children will be prioritised within the clinic wherever possible, and given the soonest appointment we can offer. They will be allocated an initial telephone appointment with a clinician which may take around an hour. If you need this appointment to be after school hours, please let our clinic know.
We are currently working on our rehabilitation pathways for children, and in the meantime your child may be referred to different specialities or services across the County depending on their needs. Your clinician will go through this with you during the initial assessment.
There are some useful resources that you can start to take a look at, which have some advice and guidance on various symptoms your child may be suffering with:
https://www.longcovidkids.org/
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/symptoms/coronavirus-in-children/