by The WHO recognises symptoms like very severe chest wall in-drawing, grunting, central cyanosis, or presence of any other general danger signs including inability to breastfeed or drink, lethargy, convulsions or reduced level of consciousness as severe COVID-19 infection in children.
WHO has recommended using casirivimab and imdevimab in children. “Fortunately, very few children become critically ill with COVID-19. For those who do and are seronegative, it is possible they may benefit from casirivimab and imdevimab,” it says.
It also recommends giving tocilizumab to kids. “This is especially true given tocilizumab is used in children safely for other indications including polyarticular juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, systemic onset of juvenile chronic arthritis, and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell induced cytokine release syndrome. Sarilumab is not approved in children, so if an IL-6 receptor blocker is used in this population, tocilizumab is preferred.”
However, it is still looking into the safety and efficacy of the recommended drugs in children. Recommending drugs to children still remains to be researched, as per WHO’s recent guidelines. “The risk of hospitalization in children is generally extremely low,” it says.
