Rutgers Leads Nat'l Study Of Long-Term COVID Effects In Children
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson University Medical School will receive approximately $30 million through a partnership it has established with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on children.
So far there have been 161,700 total coronavirus cases in children 17 and under in New Jersey, according to Wednesday's most recent Dept. of Health data. In total, about 14 percent of all of New Jersey's children 17 and under have gotten coronavirus.
The vast, vast majority of those children have survived with few to no lingering symptoms.
However:
“Children and adolescents are susceptible to long-term COVID symptoms. Some have brain fog. Others lose their stamina and with it their ability to participate in athletic activities,” said Rutgers RWJ med school professor and pediatrician Dr. Lawrence Kleinman, who will lead the study. "We are still learning what long COVID may look like in children — as well as in adults. Pain, headaches, fatigue, anxiety, depression, fever, cough and sleep problems have all been reported."
Any symptoms of coronavirus that last for more than 30 days are referred to in the medical world as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC).
One of the best known examples of PASC in children is Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a severe acute inflammatory illness, which typically begins about four to five weeks after a child has coronavirus.
Since last week, there have been two new reports of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children in New Jersey, for a total of 151 MIS-C cases in the state since the pandemic first began. One of the children is currently hospitalized.
Through his work, Dr. Kleinman is trying to predict which children that get COVID are the most likely to experience severe illness such as pneumonia or MIS-C.
While the child may have little to no symptoms of coronavirus, children with MIS-C may suddenly spike a fever and other symptoms that may include inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, circulatory system and skin. Medically fragile children may develop long-term lung issues from COVID.
Immediately after the pandemic began, Dr. Kleinman formed a national network of hospitals treating children with COVID-19, to share children's symptoms and treatment options.
In the past two years, this network has served as a source for a number of published studies, authored by Kleinman, to better understand the effects of COVID-19 on children.
Kleinman is also the lead investigator for the Collaborative Long-term study of Outcomes of COVID-19 in Kids (CLOCK) consortium at Rutgers. The CLOCK team will recruit children, adolescents and young adults from across the United States into the NIH’s RECOVER cohort study.
CLOCK partners include the American Academy of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital, Bristol Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital, Central Michigan University, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Children’s Mercy Hospital of Kansas City, Connecticut Children’s, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Hackensack Meridian Children’s Health, MetroHealth System (Cleveland), New York Medical College/Maria Ferari Children’s Hospital, RWJ Barnabas Health, University of California, San Francisco, Yale University School of Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Mayo Medical School.
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This article originally appeared on the New Brunswick Patch
