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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection in children
Author(s) -
Ng Daniel K,
Lau WingFai,
Chan KeungKit,
Pau Benjamin C,
Lam YuenYu,
Chan Eric Y,
Ho Jackson C
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
pediatrics international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.49
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1442-200X
pISSN - 1328-8067
DOI - 10.1111/j.1442-200x.2005.02092.x
Subject(s) - medicine , covid-19 , coronavirus , betacoronavirus , respiratory system , intensive care medicine , virology , pediatrics , outbreak , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was coined by the World Health Organization (WHO) 1 to describe an unusual form of severe pneumonia that first appeared in Guangdong Province, China, in November 2002. On 12 March 2003, the WHO issued a global alert on SARS. 2 At the time of writing, there were 1755 confirmed cases of SARS with 299 deaths in Hong Kong. 3 A treatment regime of ribavirin and systemic corticosteroid was reported in adults and children. 4–6 A novel coronavirus was suggested to be the cause of SARS. 4,7 It was proposed to be named after the late Dr Carlo Urbani who alerted the WHO to ‘something strange and different’ on 5 March 2003. 7 We report here five children and teenagers who showed evidence of SARS coronavirus infection. We analyzed, retrospectively, five children who were found to have pneumonia with evidence of the SARS coronavirus infection, that is, positive reverse-transcriptase – polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and/or serological evidence of infection. Details of RT-PCR and serological tests have been published previously. 4 Clinical features, investigation results, treatment and outcome are listed in Table 1.