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No SARS‐CoV‐2 carriage observed in children attending daycare centers during the intial weeks of the epidemic in Belgium
Author(s) -
Desmet Stefanie,
Ekinci Esra,
Wouters Ine,
Decru Bram,
Beuselinck Kurt,
MalhotraKumar Surbhi,
Theeten Heidi
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/jmv.26689
Subject(s) - carriage , medicine , asymptomatic , transmission (telecommunications) , covid-19 , pediatrics , epidemiology , virology , coronavirus , outbreak , disease , electrical engineering , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , engineering
To gain knowledge about the role of young children attending daycare in the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) epidemic, a random sample of children ( n = 84) aged between 6 and 30 months attending daycare in Belgium was studied shortly after the start of the epidemic (February 29th) and before the lockdown (March 18th) by performing in‐house SARS‐CoV‐2 real‐time polymerase chain reaction. No asymptomatic carriage of SARS‐CoV‐2 was detected, whereas common cold symptoms were common (51.2%). Our study shows that in Belgium, there was no sign of early introduction into daycare centers at the moment children being not yet isolated at home, although the virus was clearly circulating. It is clear that more evidence is needed to understand the actual role of young children in the transmission of SARS‐CoV‐2 and their infection risk when attending daycare.