Look Out For Post COVID-19 Syndrome In Children

Parents are being advised to look out for symptoms of multi-inflammatory system syndrome in children (MIS-C), who have recovered from the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Medical Officer of Health for Westmoreland, Dr. Marcia Graham, said that children who have had COVID-19, whether they were symptomatic or asymptomatic, may be susceptible to the illness.

She was addressing the monthly meeting of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation held in Savanna-la-Mar recently.

MIS-C is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. The condition can be serious but most children who are diagnosed have recovered with medical care.

“In the weeks following COVID-19, two, three, four weeks down the line, they [children] can come down with this post COVID syndrome. It presents with fever. If they have a fever for more than a day, get it checked out,” Dr. Graham said.

“Some of them have vomiting [and] diarrhea, it might not be gastroenteritis; it could be this post COVID syndrome that we need to monitor to make sure that their blood pressure does not drop too much,” she pointed out.

Dr. Graham said there have been more than 10 cases of MIS-C in the parish and all the patients have recovered.

“But they must come in to get the necessary monitoring and care. Some of them, their parents had no clue that they had COVID but when they came into hospital and we do the blood test, it showed that they had COVID-19 in the past, although they did not have symptoms. So, be on alert for that,” she stressed.

Information from Johns Hopkins Medicine in the United States indicates that MIS-C usually affects school-age children, most commonly eight to nine-year-olds, but the syndrome has also been seen in infants and young adults.