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. 2020 Oct;39(10):1983-1987.
doi: 10.1007/s10096-020-03900-0. Epub 2020 Aug 26.

Children account for a small proportion of diagnoses of SARS-CoV-2 infection and do not exhibit greater viral loads than adults

Philippe Colson  1   2 , Hervé Tissot-Dupont  1   2 , Aurélie Morand  1   3 , Céline Boschi  1   2 , Laetitia Ninove  1 , Vera Esteves-Vieira  1 , Philippe Gautret  1   2 , Philippe Brouqui  1   2 , Philippe Parola  1   4 , Jean-Christophe Lagier  1   2 , Christine Zandotti  1 , Matthieu Million  1   2 , Bernard La Scola  1   2 , Didier Raoult  5   6
Affiliations

Children account for a small proportion of diagnoses of SARS-CoV-2 infection and do not exhibit greater viral loads than adults

Philippe Colson et al. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Previous reports have suggested that children are less affected than adults by SARS-CoV-2. We analyzed SARS-CoV-2 diagnoses between February 27, 2020, and March 14, 2020, and mortality among positive patients in Marseille university hospitals. Of 4050 tested individuals, 228 were positive. Deaths occurred in 2/99 documented cases (both > 85 year-old). Children were majorly asymptomatic. Incidence increased by 7.4-fold between 1-5 and 45-65 years then decreased. It was significantly lower among 0-1 year- (0%) and 1-5 (1.1%) and 5-10 (3.6%)-year-old children than among subjects > 18 years (6.5%). Viral loads did not differ between children and adults. Children may not contribute significantly to virus circulation.

Keywords: Children; Covid-19; SARS-CoV-2; Transmission; Viral load.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Funding sources had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Distribution of ages among people tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection between the 27th of February and the 14th of March, 2020 (a), distribution of ages among SARS-CoV-2-negative and positive subjects (b), and proportion of positive tests according to groups of age (c)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Dot plot representation of the relationship between the age of SARS-CoV-2-positive subjects and the Ct values of PCR tests (a) and distribution of Ct values of PCR according to groups of age (b)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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