Good news for concerned parents.
According to a large new study conducted in the UK, children with Covid-19 typically recover within a week, and very few experience long-lasting symptoms.
The study, reported in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, found that most children experience few symptoms of Covid-19, and almost all recover within eight weeks.
This is the first detailed description of the disease in symptomatic children aged between five and 17, and the study focused on data from 1,734 children who tested positive for the disease and whose symptoms were reported regularly by their families until they were healthy again.
In great news, the study found that just 4.4 percent of the children experienced symptoms beyond four weeks and just 1.8 percent of the children experienced symptoms for longer than eight weeks.
Other findings from the study revealed that older children were typically ill for longer than primary school-aged children – the average illness duration was seven days in children aged 12 to 17 years versus five days in children aged five to 11 years.
Older children were also more likely to have symptoms after four weeks than younger children, but there was no difference in the numbers of children who still had symptoms after eight weeks.
Speaking about the findings, Professor Emma Duncan from King’s College London, who was the lead author of the study, said:
“It is reassuring that the number of children experiencing long-lasting symptoms of Covid-19 is low. Nevertheless, a small number of children do experience long illness with Covid-19, and our study validates the experiences of these children and their families.”
