Infants make up greater share of children in hospital with virus

A RISING proportion of children in hospital with Covid are under the age of one, papers released by the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies show.

More than four in 10 children hospitalised with coronavirus are below the age of one, the new figures show – up from less than one in three with previous variants.

Experts said the latest research, which comes from about half of NHS hospitals, also shows that when children are hospitalised the disease is milder than in previous waves, with hospital stays half as long, and involving less use of oxygen and ventilation.

They said data on children aged 12 to 17 show that of 20 cases in intensive care, none were vaccinated.

Calum Semple, professor in child health and outbreak medicine at Liverpool University, an adviser to Sage, said: “Our study has shown that there’s been an increased proportion of children being admitted in the last four weeks associated with the onset of omicron.

And this has been particularly driven by children under the age of one.”

Scientists said the figures suggest the children were “not particularly sick”, with some of the rise attributed to extra caution taken when babies suffer a fever, meaning they may be more likely to be admitted to hospital.

The trends are also likely to reflect widespread transmission across the population, working its way through age groups. But they said the nature of omicron may also be playing a part, as it is it thought to be more likely to affect the upper airways, which are smaller in children – increasing the likelihood of conditions that affect breathing.

Prof Russell Viner, professor of child and adolescent health at UCL, a fellow Sage adviser, said: “There’s potentially some evidence that this variant is affecting the upper airways more than previous variants. Children have much smaller upper airways … they are more likely to get conditions such as croup, and other conditions where they really struggle to breathe.”

Prof Christina Pagel, of UCL, said: “It is possible that omicron’s preference for upper airways is affecting young children more, even while it reduces burden in adults and older children, and we urgently need to understand more about what might be causing this.”

However, scientists said the data about the severity of disease was “reassuring”. Figures for the month ending Jan 12 show length of stay is down to an average of 1.7 days for cases under the age of one, compared with 3.2 days in the last wave, and 6.6 days in the first wave.

Dr Susan Hopkins, the chief medical advisor at UK Health Security Agency yesterday said: “We’ll be undertaking further analysis to investigate the small rise in the number of children admitted to hospital.”