%0 Journal Article
%T Retrospective Analysis of Clinical Characteristics and Disease Outcomes in Children and Adolescents Hospitalized Due to COVID-19 Infection in Tunisia.
%A Borgi A
%A Meftah K
%A Trabelsi I
%A Kyaw MH
%A Zaghden H
%A Bouafsoun A
%A Mezghani F
%A Missaoui N
%A Abdel Ali A
%A Essaddam L
%A Khemiri H
%A Haddad-Boubaker S
%A Boussetta K
%A Khemiri M
%A Ben Becher S
%A Boukthir S
%A Triki H
%A Menif K
%A Smaoui H
%J Viruses
%V 16
%N 5
%D 2024 05 14
%M 38793660
%F 5.818
%R 10.3390/v16050779
%X Due to low susceptibility of coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) in children, limited studies are available regarding COVID-19 in the pediatric population in Tunisia. The current study evaluated the incidence, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection among children hospitalized at Béchir Hamza Children's Hospital. A retrospective cohort analysis was conducted using the hospital database between March 2020 and February 2022 with children aged ≤15 years with SARS-CoV-2 infection (confirmed by RT-PCR). A total of 327 COVID-19 hospitalized patients with a mean age of 3.3 years were included; the majority were male. Neurological disease (20%) was the most common comorbidity, while fever (95.3%) followed by cough (43.7%) and dyspnea (39.6%) were the most frequent symptoms reported. Severe disease with oxygen requirement occurred in 30% of the patients; 13% were admitted in the Intensive Care Unit. The overall incidence rate of COVID-19 hospitalization (in Tunis governorates) was 77.02 per 100,000 while the inpatient case fatality rate was 5% in the study population. The most prevalent circulating variant during our study period was Delta (48.8%), followed by Omicron (26%). More than 45% of the study population were <6 months and one-fourth (n = 25, 26.5%) had at least one comorbidity. Thus, the study findings highlight the high disease burden of COVID-19 in infants.