Children and teens have a doubled risk of ending up with long COVID after becoming infected with COVID-19 for a second time, researchers reported in a study. File Photo by Andrew Coelho/EPA
Children and teens have a doubled risk of long COVID following their second COVID-19 infection, researchers report.
What's more, long COVID dramatically increases kids' risk of myocarditis, blood clots, damaged kidneys, abnormal heart beats and other health problems, researchers report in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
"The results of this study further support one of the strongest reasons I give patients, families and physicians about getting vaccinated: More vaccines should lead to fewer infections, which should lead to less long COVID," researcher Dr. Ravi Jhaveri, head of pediatric infectious diseases at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, said in a news release.
For the study, researchers analyzed the health records of more than 465,000 children and teens from Jan. 1, 2022, to Oct. 12, 2023, during the Omicron wave of the COVID pandemic.
