Students return to school for classes at Posung Middle School in Seoul, South Korea, May 27, 2020. (Photo by Lee Sang-ho/Xinhua)
Symptom screening fails to identify most COVID-19 cases in children, and SARS-CoV-2 RNA in children is detected for an unexpectedly long time.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Children infected with COVID-19 can shed the virus for weeks, even if they are asymptomatic or after their symptoms are clear, said a new study published Friday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
Researchers observed 91 children younger than 19 years old with COVID-19 from Feb. 18 to March 31 in 20 hospitals and 2 non-hospital isolation facilities across the Republic of Korea.
Children walk past a basketball court at a primary school in South Gyeongsang province, South Korea, March 31, 2020. (NEWSIS/Handout via Xinhua)
About 22 percent of them were asymptomatic. Only 8.5 percent of symptomatic cases were diagnosed at the time of symptom onset, while 66.2 percent had unrecognized symptoms before diagnosis and 25.4 percent developed symptoms after diagnosis, according to the study.
SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected for a mean of 17.6 days overall and 14.1 days in asymptomatic cases, said the study.
The results show symptom screening fails to identify most COVID-19 cases in children, and SARS-CoV-2 RNA in children is detected for an unexpectedly long time, according to the study. ■
