Comparative study of the clinical characteristics and epidemiological trend of 244 COVID-19 infected children with or without GI symptoms.

Gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms1 2 and positive stool severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) detection3 have been reported in COVID-19 infected patients. However, these studies mainly focused on the adult population, and it is still not known whether children with COVID-19 have similar GI involvement. We here report the clinical characteristics of 244 consecutive COVID-19 positive children from Wuhan, during the period 21 January to 20 March 2020. All were confirmed to have SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) on nasopharyngeal swabs. We specifically compared the differences between patients with and without GI symptoms (having at least one of the following: diarrhoea; nausea and vomiting; abdominal pain; and decreased feeding). In our cohort, 34 of 244 (13.9%) presented with GI symptoms on admission. These patients were much younger (14 vs 86 months; p<0.05), and more than half were under 3 years old. For the clinical and laboratory parameters, patients with GI symptoms were more likely to have fever on admission (70.6% vs 35.7%, p<0.05) (table 1 …