COVID‐19 IN Turkey: A tertiary center experience

Önal, Pınar; Kılınç, Ayşe Ayzıt; Aygün, Fatih; Durak, Cansu; Çokuğraş, Haluk

BACKGROUND: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) has been causing a serious epidemic in our country and all over the world since December 2019 and has become a global health problem. The disease caused by the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus has been named as coronavirus disease 19 (COVID‐19). METHODS: We report on the epidemiological and clinical features of 37 children diagnosed with COVID‐19. RESULTS: The median age was 10 years, and 57.1% of the children were male. In addition, 78.3% of the children had histories of contact with adult patients who had been diagnosed with COVID‐19, and 27.0% of our patients had coexisting medical conditions. We found that 40.5% of our patients had mild infection, while 32.4% had moderate infection, and 27.1% had developed severe or critical illness. The most common abnormal laboratory findings in our patients were decreased lymphocytes (45.9%) and increased D‐dimer values (43.2%), while abnormal radiological findings were detected in 56.7% of the children. In addition, 64.8% of the patients had received azithromycin, 59.4% of the patients had received oseltamivir, and hydroxychloroquine was used in combination with azithromycin in 35.1% of the children. Non‐invasive mechanical ventilation was required in 27.0% of the children. CONCLUSIONS: Although COVID‐ 19 infection is usually mild in childhood, severe clinic can be seen in children with comorbidities or even in children who were previously healthy.