COVID 19 in Children: Experience of the COVID-19 Pediatric Unit at Mohammed VI University Hospital

The child is part of the population affected by Covid-19. The Ministry of Health in Morocco has developed guidelines for prevention and management of COVID-19 specific to children. At the Mother-child Hospital of Mohamed VI University Hospital in Marrakech, a Special Unit has been set up to receive cases suspected of having a COVID 19 among children and there parents .

The objective of this work is to describe the clinical and evolutionary characteristics of children and their parents admitted to the COVID-19 unit.

368 children and their mothers were admitted to the pediatric COVID -19 unit. The epidemic curve of admitted cases was synchronous with a wave of a large cluster recorded regionally in family settings. The majority of patients (71%) admitted with suspected COVID -19 had a confirmed familial case. The sex ratio of the study cohort was 1.2. The mean age was 6.5 years for children and 36 years for mothers. 89% of the children were asymptomatic compared to 46% of asymptomatic cases in the mothers. For symptomatic cases, dry cough and diarrhea represented the most frequent symptoms in children with 92.3% AND 84.7% respectively. Among mothers, dry cough and fever were the most common symptoms. The mean incubation time was 5 days. COVID-19 RT-PCR positivity rate was 19.34%

The proportion of mild cases remains high and larger series in other studies confirm the mild nature of clinical forms of this disease in children