Infection has become a problem for pediatric infected people to cause secondary infections outside the home, but the frequency of secondary infections outside the home for new coronavirus infections is low, according to Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine research. It became clear in the research of Professor Hitoshi Oshitani of the department.Professor Oshiya and his colleagues believe that it is necessary to carefully evaluate the effectiveness of infection control measures for children, such as school closure measures.
According to Tohoku University, the research group of Professor Oshiya and others analyzed information on more than 20 patients with new corona infections under the age of 7,000 published by prefectures nationwide, and the environment in which they had contact with new corona patients in the past and themselves were two. We investigated the environment that caused the next infection (a patient with an infectious disease transmitting the infection to a person other than himself).
As a result, households accounted for 32% of the environments in which they had contact with new corona patients in the past, and less than 5% had contact with nursery schools, kindergartens, and elementary, junior high, and high schools.
10% caused secondary infections.When it comes to junior high school students and above, it causes many secondary infections, and the number of junior high school students is 2.7 times that of elementary school students and 2.1 times that of high school students.However, the environment in which secondary infections occurred was highest in households at 26%, and in nursery schools, kindergartens, elementary, junior high and high schools only 6%.The situation is very different from influenza, where younger school children are more likely to cause secondary infections outside the home.
The impact on secondary infections outside the home was also limited, suggesting that the role of children in regional epidemics may be limited.Professor Oshitani and his colleagues say that infection prevention measures should be devised in the future, referring to these results.
Paper information:[Frontiers in Pediatrics] Roles of children and adolescents in COVID-19 transmission in the community: A retrospective analysis of nationwide data in Japan
