Neurologic and Radiographic Findings Associated With COVID-19 Infection in Children

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by the highly pathogenic virus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was first detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and has since become a worldwide pandemic infecting more than 9 million people (as of mid-June 2020). In adults, COVID-19 ranges from an asymptomatic infection to severe respiratory failure. Data so far suggest that children and young adults are less likely to become severely ill than older adults.¹ Increasing reports of children developing systemic inflammatory response requiring intensive care (labeled pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome temporally associated with COVID-19²) and a further group of children with a far less severe, Kawasaki-like disease, who respond to a variety of immunomodulatory treatments,³ suggest that despite the typically mild acute infection, children may be at high risk of a secondary inflammatory syndrome.