COVID-19 implications at the Clinical University Center in Kosovo – Department of Pediatrics

Abstract

IntroductionIn late December 2019, the first pneumonia cases of unknown origin were identified in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province in central China. While the most data are available for adult patients with COVID-19, limited reports analyze pediatric patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. The aim of the study was to describe the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in patients at the Pediatric Clinical Center of Kosovo.Material and methodsThis research is retrospective and includes data for the period from 8 July 2020 to 6 January 2021. In this study we obtained data from different documents and patients’ records, providing information regarding gender, age, number of cases, most frequent diagnosis, critical patients, etc.ResultsOut of 69 pediatric patients hospitalized in the clinic during the seven months, 50 patients tested positive with COVID-19. The study sample represented an equal number of males and females (50/50), while the average age of the patients was 6 years. Based on the pediatric age groups, the study sample comprises 16 patients of the age groups of 1 month–2 years, 20 patients of the age group of 2–6 years; 4 patients of the age group of 6–12 years, and 10 patients of the age group of 12–18 years.ConclusionsData suggest that pediatric cases of COVID-19 in adolescents have more severe symptoms than in the other age groups; however, in general children tend to cope much more easily with the virus than adults.