COVID-19: A review of drugs and therapies for children

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the disease as Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) due to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Coronavirus infection was restricted to animals but gained importance in medicine as it acted as the aetiological factor responsible for the SARS epidemic in 2002 in the Guangdong province of China. WHO reported its spread to over 26 countries, causing infections in 8096 individuals and 774 deaths. This group of viruses caused another outbreak in 2012 as Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Since December 2019, a strain of novel coronavirus has wreaked havoc in the Hubei province of China and has caused severe pneumonia. On March 11, the WHO declared it a ‘pandemic’. More than 1.5 million cases of COVID 19 have been reported with a mortality of over 85,000 across 212 countries. The largest study on children with COVID 19 to date includes an analysis of 2143 children documented from 16 of January, 2020 to 8 of February, 2020. This study showed that only 1 child had died while 5.9% were critical or had severe pneumonia, the majority having mild to moderate illness. Although pneumonia remains the chief cause of death among the under 5 year age category, the features of COVID-19 pneumonia were relatively milder compared to pneumonia of other aetiologies and the prognosis was better with deaths being extremely rare.