Hospitalizations Associated with COVID-19 Among Children in Republic of North Macedonia from September 2021 to January 2022

Abstract

In late 2019 a novel coronavirus was recognized as a cause of pneumonia in patients in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. It rapidly spread through the world, resulting in global pandemic, with more than 420 million registered cases and nearly 6 million deaths so far. The aim of this retrospective, single center study is to analyze epidemiological data from the national pediatric COVID-19 center during the period when Delta and Omicron variants were most prevalent. Total of 4,846 patients suspected for COVID-19 were referred to our hospital from 09/2021 to 01/2022. We have divided them in several groups according to the PCR test result, symptoms, gender and age group. All patients had fever as a leading symptom. Two hundred and fifty COVID-19 positive patients (5.1%) needed hospitalization, with male to female ratio 1:1, of them, neonates 0-1 month were 4 (1.6%), infants 1m-1 year, 17 (14.8%), preschool 1-6 years, 89 (35.6%), school 7-10 years, 30 (12%), adolescent 11-19 years, 90 patients (36%). The highest number of outpatients has been recorded in September (28%). It is interesting to note that despite the reduced number of outpatients in January, there has been increase in the hospitalizations rate, especially in infants (6.8% as compared to 3.2% in September) and preschool children (10% compared to 7.1%). Although COVID-19 is less severe disease in children, and there are more than 50 % asymptomatic cases, in some cases hospitalization is needed and children up to 1 year of age and obese older children are at higher risk of hospitalization. In pediatric patients with severe disease, multisystem inflammatory syndrome should be considered.