Coronavirus and Genetics Peer-Reviewed Article Summary

In the article, Characteristics and Outcomes of Children With Coronavirus Disease 2019(COVID-19) Infection Admitted to US and Canadian Pediatric Intensive Care Units, scientists look at the reality of children that are hospitalized from contracting coronavirus during the first few months of the outbreak in Northern America. When severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, commonly known as COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2, started to appear in China there was no major concern in America until weeks later when the disease was brought into the states mid January of 2020. Since the initial outbreak of coronavirus, there has been research showing that adults and the elderly are much more likely to contract and have a greater illness and even death with this disease than children. Although many children are affected by coronavirus it seemed that there were fewer children being admitted into intensive care. Rather than studying more adults during this pandemic, the goal of this article was to study children in pediatric intensive care units due to coronavirus and look at what characteristics these children have that could explain why they are severely ill compared to the rest of the population.In the study, 48 children participated; being observed of their illness severity, and previous health conditions. These children were all located in America in 14 Pediatric Intensive care units (PICUs) across the country, making the research more relevant to myself as a younger American with younger sisters. Of the children in pediatric intensive care units, it was found that prehospital comorbidities were the biggest factors in the children being admitted than anything else. Comorbidity is where a person has the presence of two chronic diseases or conditions at the same time. For example, along with the coronavirus disease, sickle cell anemia was a characteristic a couple of children shared, consequently leading them to be in the intensive care units. Sickle cell anemia is a genetic disease that alters the structure of a person’s red blood cells, which are used to carry oxygen throughout the body. By having this disease prior to contracting coronavirus, these patients had weaker immune systems which put them at risk of developing serious health problems from coronavirus. Another genetic disorder acknowledged in the study was epilepsy or seizure disorder. This is different from most of the other genetic disorders reported since having epilepsy does not directly weaken a person’s immune system, but was important enough to note. Most comorbidities had to do with autoimmune diseases, approximately 73% of the children had previous complications with their respiratory system, and 38% of those patients required“invasive ventilation”.It was found that of the forty-eight children the mortality rate was only 4.2%. This study shows while yes, children are affected by the disease which can cause serious illness and lead to death, it is much less frequent than older Americans dying from the disease. Furthermore, it concluded that the reason most children became very ill was because of previous genetic conditions that mostly caused a weakened immune system.

References

Shekerdemian, L., Mahmood, N., Wolfe, K., Riggs, B., Ross, C., McKiernan, C., Heidemann, S.,Kleinman, L., Sen, A., Hall, M., Priestley, M., McGuire, J., Boukas, K., Sharron, M., Burns, J.2020. Characteristics and Outcomes of Children With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)Infection Admitted to US and Canadian Pediatric Intensive Care Units. JAMA Pediatr.2020;174(9):868–873.