The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday released a report that found that over 1 million children in the United States have suffered from the effects of long COVID in 2023.
Researchers from two different CDC divisions analyzed data from the 2023 National Health Interview Survey, a nationwide study designed to track the health of the U.S. population.
In the survey, researchers randomly selected one child aged 17 or younger from each household. The parents of those children then answered questions about their child's COVID-19 infection history, including whether symptoms lasted three months or longer and whether the child still showed those symptoms during the interview.
What Were The Findings?
The findings indicate that around 1.01 million children (1.4%) were reported to have experienced long-term COVID-19 in 2023. Of those, about 293,000 were still showing symptoms at the time of the survey. Another study suggests that 10% to 20% of pediatric COVID-19 infections may turn into long-term COVID-19.
For context, long COVID usually appears about three months after a person recovers from the initial COVID-19 infection. Although this condition has been well-studied in adults, experts are still learning how it affects children.
The five most common long COVID symptoms seen in children are extreme tiredness (also called fatigue), headaches, difficulty concentrating or brain fog, trouble sleeping, and stomach pain. These symptoms can last for weeks or months after the initial COVID-19 infection, even in children who had mild or no symptoms during their initial illness.
Who Is Most Vulnerable to Long COVID?
The CDC report found that children aged 12 to 17 are most likely to have experienced long COVID or still be dealing with it. Hispanic children and non-Hispanic white children were affected at higher rates than non-Hispanic Black and Asian children.
It also showed that children from families with incomes under $100,000 or whose parents have an associate's degree or lower were more likely to have or have had long COVID. In addition, about 80% of children in the survey who had long COVID experienced some level of activity limitation compared to their abilities before getting sick.
Assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT, Carlos Oliveira, M.D., Ph.D, also talked about the condition. He said that children who got severely ill during their initial infection were "significantly more likely to develop long COVID."
The CDC also points out that people who are unvaccinated face a higher risk of developing long COVID. Although experts do not yet know the exact cause of this condition, they have identified risk factors such as having underlying health issues.
