characteristics and outcomes of children with covid-19: evidence from west nusa tenggara province, indonesia

Background: globally, covid-19 is less prevalent in children than adults. however, in indonesia, the number of infected children have been increasing rapidly. objectives: to describe characteristics and outcomes of children with covid-19 in west-nusa-tenggara province, indonesia. methods: we retrospectively reviewed registries of children with confirmed covid-19 collected by the indonesian-pediatric-society, west-nusa-tenggara. children diagnosed with covid-19 by rt-pcr from march 2 to july 12, 2020, were included in the analysis. results: of 146 covid-19-confirmed subjects, 47.9% were symptomatic, 45.2% were aged < 5 years old, 58.2% were male, 54.8% had a history of covid-19 contact, and 2.7% (n = 4) died. asymptomatic subjects had older median age (p < 0.01), longer median duration of rt-pcr conversion (p < 0.01) than symptomatic children and 88.2% had a history of covid-19 contact. forty-eight (out of 55 hospitalized symptomatic subjects or 87%) were < 5 years old, had younger median age (p < 0.01), and 4 (7.3%) had a history of covid-19 contact. they also had higher respiratory rate and body temperature (p < 0.01), lower oxygen saturation (p < 0.01), higher white-blood-cell counts (p = 0.01), and lower hemoglobin levels (p = 0.015) compared to the non-hospitalized symptomatic subjects. forty-three (78%) hospitalized subjects were in severe and critical condition, 49 (89%) were pneumonia, and 28 (51%) had bilateral infiltrates on chest x-ray. all registered deaths were due to acute-respiratory-distress-syndrome. besides, all deaths were in hospitals without a pediatric-intensive-care-unit. conclusions: in the present study, we identified both asymptomatic and symptomatic covid-19 infected children. most symptomatic covid-19 cases were in children < 5 years old, presented with severe pneumonia, and few of them had a history of covid-19 contact.