A study on the transmission of Covid in the family highlights the difficulty of separating positive children from those who care for them. However, children are absolutely infected and get sick less: they have a greater innate immunity of the airways.
Small children infect 43% more than adolescents. A study just published on Jama Pediatrics
which refers to data from Ontario that relate only to infections within the family.
It is difficult to be separated in the family
The study took place between June 1 and December 31, 2020, conducted by the Public Health Agency of Ontario, Canada. The ages of the pediatric cases were divided into classes from 0 to 3, from 4 to 8, from 9 to 13 and from 14 to 17 years. A total of 6,280 families had pediatric index cases (laboratory confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection under the age of 18) and 1,717 families (27.3%) had secondary transmission, i.e. infection within the home from 1 to 14 days after the index case. Children aged 0-3 years had the highest chances of transmitting SARS-CoV-2 to family contacts (+ 43%) compared to children between the ages of 14 and 17. Children between the ages of 4 and 8 (+ 40%) and between the ages of 9 and 13 (+ 13%) were also more likely to be transmitted.
The reasons that explain the results are probably that it is difficult and often impossible to socially isolate oneself from sick children, especially if young, which is possible in the case of adolescents.
Children are better protected
The possibility of infecting (others) is different from the probability of contracting the virus in the first person: in this case children are favored and appear to be somewhat protected from respiratory infections in the early days of their life. The evidence from real-world infections had highlighted this for some time, now an important German study has been published in the journal Nature
which suggests an explanation: they seem to have one increased innate immunity of the upper airways, the entrance doors of the SARS-CoV-2.
An innate ability that is lost
Children have reduced infection rates and a substantially lower risk of developing severe coronavirus disease than adults. Our study provides evidence that children’s airway immune cells are predisposed to virus detection, resulting in a stronger early innate antiviral response SARS-CoV-2 infection than adults. The research compared samples from people between 4 weeks and 77 years of age. While immune cells were rarely detected in nasal samples from healthy adults, samples from SARS-CoV-2 negative children contained high amounts of almost any subset of immune cells. The greater innate antiviral capacity in children may explain why children are better able to control infection at an early stage than adults and therefore have a lower risk of developing severe Covid, the researchers conclude.
August 19, 2021 (change August 19, 2021 | 13:04)
© Time.News