New COVID-19 coronavirus infection in the practice of a neonatologist and pediatrician

Abstract

The article analyses the data published from January 2020 to April 25, 2020 in the print media or available on the official websites of peer-reviewed medical sources (pre print), international and national medical professional communities, and state regulatory authorities dedicated to the epidemiological and clinical laboratory features of the new coronavirus infection in newborns, infants and older children. The authors have concluded that currently there are no convincing data on vertical transmission of infection. At the same time, they have found that there is a risk of horizontal infection of a newborn child; therefore, there is the need for strict adherence to the recommended algorithms for monitoring children in the neonatal period born by the women with positive or presumably positive COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) status. The authors note that due to the limited quantity of observation cases, all existing recommendations are temporary and may be revised. The newborns from mothers with COVID-19 demonstrate the variability of clinical picture from asymptomatic course to severe respiratory failure. In the post-neonatal period children have asymptomatic or mild course of a new coronavirus infection. The authors note that some children with an asymptomatic course of the disease have pneumonia detectable during X-ray examination. Children with the manifest forms of COVID-19 do not have specific clinical symptoms; both children and adults have fever, cough and other catarrhal symptoms; tachypia, tachycardia and gastrointestinal symptoms are much less common. It has been found that children with COVID-19, unlike adults, are unlikely to develop severe pneumonia, as well as conditions requiring intensive care and mechanical ventilation. Changes in laboratory parameters in children also do not have a consistent pattern and they are less pronounced than in adults. The epidemiological data indicate that children are one of the main sources of the ongoing spread of infection in the human population. The authors present the first-ever data on the cases of 45 infants born from the mothers with positive COVID-19 status in Moscow.