Although children were far less likely to contract COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic, they were affected. As of July 1, 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association reported more than 4.04 million children had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States; 50,439 in Alabama.1 Since the pandemic’s start, Children’s of Alabama has treated over 500 infants and children with COVID-19 and almost 100 with multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), the long-term repercussions of which are just now emerging.
Many affected children, like adults, have developed acute kidney injury (AKI) during hospitalization for severe disease, particularly children who have been hospitalized with MIS-C. One study of 152 children who had either acute COVID-19 or MIS-C found that AKI occurred in 10 percent of patients. These children had longer lengths of stay in the hospital and increased risk of other medical conditions.2 Another study of 52 patients with COVID-19 found that nearly 30 percent developed AKI.3
“The jury is out on how much of that was due to severe illness versus how much the virus plays a direct role,” said Children’s nephrologist Erica C. Bjornstad, M.D. Some reports surmise that the virus is toxic to the kidney, but, Dr. Bjornstad said, more evidence is needed. Nonetheless, it appears that children who developed AKI while hospitalized need long-term follow-up as the long-term implications are not yet fully understood, she added.
Thus, primary care physicians caring for these children after discharge should have a “high level of suspicion” if urine tests show high levels of protein, or children demonstrate new onset hypertension,” Dr. Bjornstad said. “They should look for COVID-19 as a culprit.” In fact, she suggests urine tests for all children who had COVID-19, even if they had a mild form of the disease, although no formal guidelines have been released. If the problem doesn’t resolve, the children should be referred to a nephrologist. “We don’t have a good handle if it goes away,” she said.
“We’re still learning how this plays out since the pandemic is still not over,” Dr. Bjornstad said. Plus, “we don’t know what the fall holds with the Delta variant and as more people move indoors,” she added.
Dr. Bjornstad and others at Children’s are involved with a large study that is mining an international registry of COVID-19 patients (children and adults) to tease out the effects on the kidney. Ideally, she would like to obtain funding to follow former patients for a prolonged period of time, “so we can keep learning and have data to support standard guidelines,” she said.
1 Children and COVID-19: State-Level Data Report. American Academy of Pediatrics. July 1, 2021. Available at: https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/children-and-covid-19-state-level-data-report/. Accessed July 7, 2021.
2 Basalely A, Gurusinghe S, Schneider J, et al. Acute kidney injury in pediatric patients hospitalized with acute COVID-19 and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children associated with COVID-19. Clin Invest. 2021;100(1): 138-145
3 Knight, P.P., Deep, A. Save the kidneys in COVID-19. Pediatr Res (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-020-01280-x
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