1. The differential impact of pediatric COVID-19 between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review of fatality and ICU admission in children worldwide.
- Author
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Kitano T, Kitano M, Krueger C, Jamal H, Al Rawahi H, Lee-Krueger R, Sun RD, Isabel S, García-Ascaso MT, Hibino H, Camara B, Isabel M, Cho L, Groves HE, Piché-Renaud PP, Kossov M, Kou I, Jon I, Blanchard AC, Matsuda N, Mahood Q, Wadhwa A, Bitnun A, and Morris SK
- Subjects
- Age Factors, COVID-19 mortality, Child, Child, Preschool, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Intensive Care Units, Pandemics, Pediatrics, COVID-19 epidemiology, Global Health economics, Socioeconomic Factors
- Abstract
Background: The overall global impact of COVID-19 in children and regional variability in pediatric outcomes are presently unknown., Methods: To evaluate the magnitude of global COVID-19 death and intensive care unit (ICU) admission in children aged 0-19 years, a systematic review was conducted for articles and national reports as of December 7, 2020. This systematic review is registered with PROSPERO (registration number: CRD42020179696)., Results: We reviewed 16,027 articles as well as 225 national reports from 216 countries. Among the 3,788 global pediatric COVID-19 deaths, 3,394 (91.5%) deaths were reported from low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), while 83.5% of pediatric population from all included countries were from LMIC. The pediatric deaths/1,000,000 children and case fatality rate (CFR) were significantly higher in LMIC than in high-income countries (HIC) (2.77 in LMIC vs 1.32 in HIC; p < 0.001 and 0.24% in LMIC vs 0.01% in HIC; p < 0.001, respectively). The ICU admission/1,000,000 children was 18.80 and 1.48 in HIC and LMIC, respectively (p < 0.001). The highest deaths/1,000,000 children and CFR were in infants < 1 year old (10.03 and 0.58% in the world, 5.39 and 0.07% in HIC and 10.98 and 1.30% in LMIC, respectively)., Conclusions: The study highlights that there may be a larger impact of pediatric COVID-19 fatality in LMICs compared to HICs., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
- Published
- 2021
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