Introduction. On account of the generally milder symptoms in children and of the risk of remaining undiagnosed, diagnosis and treatment of children with COVID-19 remains a challenge for the medical community. The aim of this paper is to indicate the clinical characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and also some preventive and therapeutic measures performed so far in pediatric cases. Methods and materials. In this rapid review, a comprehensive search was conducted on Scopus and PubMed databases, with the aim of observing the clinical characteristics, management, complications and treatment of pediatric cases diagnosed with COVID-19. A total number of 577 articles were found which, after eliminating the duplicates, were reduced to 544. To this end, 565 papers were screened by their title and abstract, finally 16 papers being included (only English papers were considered, the Chinese papers and databases being not analyzed). Results and discussion. Among the studies that explicitly referred to patients’ clinical symptoms, the most common were fever and cough. Other less common symptoms include sore throat, throat obstruction, dyspnea and tachypnea, rhinorrhea, nasal congestion, throat erythema, sputum, cough, fatigue. Also, the most common treatments used included antiviral drugs, immune-based therapy, antibiotics and hydroxychloroquine. Conclusions. The results obtained showed that, in children, the symptoms of the disease can be different than in adults. The most common symptoms observed in children were fever, cough, gastrointestinal symptoms, runny nose, dyspnea and tachypnea. Most currently recommended were antiviral drugs, immuno-based therapy, antibiotics, and hydroxychloroquine.
Keywords:- children
- clinical analysis
- covid-19
- rapid review