Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID‐19 pandemic is the most serious global public health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic. This study is the first to assess its mental health impact across the lifespan in the United States in adolescents, adults, and health care workers.

Evidence and objective assessment are needed more than ever to help enhance the rights and well-being of the world’s children. Researching the changing world around us and evaluating progress are two sides of the same coin, both critical to reimagining a better future for children. In recognition of this, UNICEF celebrates and showcases innovative and influential research and evaluations from our offices around the world every year. For 2020, Innocenti and the Evaluation Office joined forces to find the most rigorous UNICEF studies with greatest influence on policies and programmes that benefit children.

In India, due to the closure of all schools, colleges and other learning institutions, more than 320 million students have been affected1. Out of these students, 247 million are enrolled in elementary and secondary education, while 28 million had been attending pre-school education. In addition to these numbers, more than  6 million girls and boys were already out of school before the advent of COVID-19. This guide is designed for principals, head teachers, teachers and parents to help school-going children maintain their mental health and wellness during these difficult times.

When speaking about the impact of COVID-19 on their lives, young women and young men prioritize different areas. Young women are more likely to speak to the importance of COVID-19’s impact on education, food, and safety. Both young women and young men prioritize impacts on income, but for young men, this is a much bigger concern. Only young women are raising concerns about access to information, implying that this is a bigger obstacle and gap for young women than it is for young men.

Smartphone addiction, Internet addiction, family members or friends infected with coronavirus, graduation affected by the epidemic, levels of separation anxiety, physical injury fear, and tendency to adopt an emotion-focused coping style were associated with increased levels of respondents’ depressive symptoms.
Targeted intervention measures could be formulated based on the significant influencing factors on anxiety and clinical depressive symptoms.

The incidence of COVID-19 in children and teenagers is only about 2% in China. Children had mild symptoms and hardly infected other children or adults. It is worth considering that children are the most vulnerable to respiratory pathogens, but fatal SARS-like virus had not caused severe cases among them. According to the pathological studies of COVID-19 and SARS, a sharp decrease in T lymphocytes leads to the breakdown of the immune system. The cellular immune system of children differs from that of adults may be the keystone of atypical clinical manifestations or even covert infection. The frequent childhood vaccinations and repeated pathogens infections might be resulting in trained immunity of innate immune cells, immune fitness of adaptive immune cells or cross-protection of antibodies in the children. Therefore, due to lack of specific vaccine, some vaccines for tuberculosis, influenza and pneumonia may have certain application potential for the front-line health workers in the prevention and control of COVID-19. However, for high-risk susceptible populations, such as the elderly with basic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, it is necessary to explore the remedial effect of the planned immune process on their immunity to achieve the trained immunity or immune fitness, so as to improve their own antiviral ability.

Au Niger comme partout dans le monde le coronavirus a crée une psychose qui a conduit l’Etat Nigérien avec l’appui de ses partenaires Techniques et Financiers à prendre des mesures adéquates pour lutter contre la maladie. Ces mesures ont malheureusement perturbé le système économique et social chez la jeunesse.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in governments implementing disease containment measures such as school closures, social distancing and home quarantine. Children and adolescents are experiencing a prolonged state of physical isolation from their peers, teachers, extended family and community networks. Quarantine in adults generally has negative psychological effects including confusion, anger, and post-traumatic distress. Duration of quarantine, infection fears, boredom, frustration, lack of necessary supplies, lack of information, financial loss, and stigma appear to increase the risk of negative psychological outcomes. Social distancing and school closures may, therefore, increase mental health problems in children and adolescents, already at higher risk of developing mental health problems compared to adults  at a time when they are also experiencing anxiety over a health threat and threats to family employment/income.

To date, few data on paediatric COVID-19 have been published, and most reports originate from China. This study aimed to capture key data on children and adolescents with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection across Europe to inform physicians and health-care service planning during the ongoing pandemic.

This review systematically researched in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases observational studies describing COVID-19 in children and/or adolescents until April 11, 2020. Data regarding clinical and radiological features were extracted from eligible studies and meta-analysis was performed using random-effects modeling. The study finds that children and/or adolescents tend to have a mild COVID-19 course with a good prognosis.
Compared to adults, children and/or adolescents tend to have a mild COVID-19 course with a good prognosis.

 The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had far-reaching health, social, and economic implications. Among them is the abrupt cessation of school programs for children and adolescents in Italy who by mandate had to remain in their homes during the “lockdown” aimed at containing and mitigating spread of COVID19. There are reasons to be concerned about housebound children and adolescents who have overweight and obesity; previous studies have supported the hypothesis that these youths will fare worse on weight-control lifestyle programs while at home compared with when they are engaged in their usual school curriculum.