Incidence of Febrile Seizures in Children with COVID-19

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a common cause of febrile seizures (FS), especially after the Omicron surge. This study aimed to determine the incidence of COVID-19-associated FS in children. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in patients aged below five years residing in the Jeonbuk province from January 2020 to June 2022 was obtained from official data provided by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security. During the same period, data on FS patients with COVID-19 were obtained from all local hospitals capable of FS treatment and were analyzed retrospectively. The number of children under five years of age in Jeonbuk was 62,772, of which 33,457 (53.2%) were diagnosed with COVID-19 during the study period. Of these, 476 patients (1.4%) required hospitalization, and 64 (0.19%, 44 boys; 68.8%: 20 girls; 31.2%) developed FS. All patients with FS presented with symptoms after the Omicron surge. Before the Omicron variant, 23.4% of the patients (89 of 381) required hospitalization; however, no children with COVID-19 were hospitalized for FS. Twenty-five patients (39.1%) had complex FS while one (1.6%) presented with febrile status epilepticus. Forty-two patients (65.6%) experienced first-time FS with an average of 1.5 convulsive events.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; children; coronavirus disease 19; febrile seizure.

Figure 1

Confirmed COVID-19 cases, hospitalization rates, and febrile seizures according to sex.

Figure 2

Incidence of confirmed COVID-19 cases, febrile seizures, and hospitalization rates according to year during the COVID-19 pandemic. The * indicates the percentage of boys with febrile seizures among those with confirmed COVID-19. The ** indicates the percentage of boys among those who showed febrile seizures.