Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This study highlights the evolution and use of telemedicine in child and adolescent healthcare in India, in pre and post pandemic eras. The latest research endorses telemedicine as a successful strategy in resource-limited settings to provide accessible and equitable healthcare. Telemedicine was initiated in India in 2001. The pandemic restrictions resulted in an increase in its use. The national telemedicine and telepsychiatry guidelines facilitated and enabled its widespread use. Telehealth was used by private and public health establishments, in urban, rural, and remote areas. It was used for triaging cases; managing and monitoring COVID patients in home isolation, in non-COVID medical and psychiatric care, and follow-up; continuing medical education; and health promotion strategies like teleyoga.

The aims of this research were to review patients visiting the paediatric emergency department over a 6-month period 1 year before and during the pandemic, to review paediatric emergency department referral ratios and to determine whether there were any significant decreases in mortality and morbidity. All patients from the ages of 0 to 18 years visiting the University of Health Sciences, Ankara Research and Training Hospital, paediatric emergency service from April-October 2019 to April-October 2020 with no missing information in their records were involved in this retrospective cross-sectional study.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent public health guidance to reduce the spread of the disease have wide-reaching implications for children’s health and wellbeing. Furthermore, paediatric emergency departments (EDs) have rapidly adapted provision of care in response to the pandemic. This qualitative study utilized insight from multidisciplinary frontline staff to understand 1) the changes in paediatric emergency healthcare utilization during COVID-19 2) the experiences of working within the restructured health system.

Paediatric emergency departments have seen reduced attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Late paediatric presentations may lead to severe illness and even death. Maintaining provision of healthcare through a pandemic is essential. This qualitative study aims to identify changing care-seeking behaviours in child health during the pandemic and ascertain parental views around barriers to care.

Fever without source (FWS) in infants is a frequent cause of consultation at the emergency department, and the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 could affect the approach to those infants. The aim of this study is to define the clinical characteristics and rates of bacterial coinfections of infants < 90 days with FWS as the first manifestation of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This is a cross-sectional study of infants under 90 days of age with FWS and positive SARS-CoV2 PCR in nasopharyngeal swab/aspirate, attended at the emergency departments of 49 Spanish hospitals (EPICO-AEP cohort) from March 1 to June 26, 2020.

Italy was the first country in Europe affected by COVID-19: the emergency started on February 20, 2020, culminating with national lockdown on March 11, which terminated on May 4, 2020. This article describes how the pandemic affected Emergency Department (ED) accesses in a tertiary children’s hospital, composed by two different pediatric centers, one located in Rome’s city center and the second, Palidoro (regional COVID-19 center), in its surrounding metropolitan area, both in the Lazio region, analyzing the profile of admitted patients during the pandemic period in terms of their general characteristics (at presentation in the ED’s) and urgent hospitalizations compared to prepandemic period.

During the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) emergency, in the pediatric surgical setting, it has been essential to avoid and contain infections as well as to protect both the patients and the surgical team. During this emergency, procedures and workflow were adapted to provide the safest possible environment for both the surgical team and the patients. Pediatric surgical activities were reorganized during the COVID-19 pandemic at the “Vittore Buzzi” Children’s Hospital, which is a pediatric/maternal hospital located in Milan (Lombardy Region), Italy. Resources were optimized in order to maintain high levels of care and quality of assistance. During the COVID-19 emergency, the pediatric surgical department at the “Vittore Buzzi” Children’s Hospital became an acute care surgical service.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in large-scale changes to the National Health Service (NHS) systems in the UK to accommodate a predicted surge in acutely unwell adults presenting to emergency and critical care departments. This article describes a rapid, multicentre surveillance project with three main aims: (1) to identify the number of children with delayed presentations to hospital in large emergency departments; (2) to find out what proportion of these delays was due to hesitance of parents in attending versus the proportion that was due to advice from primary care staff or NHS 111 referrals; and (3) to find out whether these delays might have resulted in harm to children (using admission to hospital as a proxy).

This short communication describes the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the paediatric population of French West Indies and it underlines ethical and policy problems.