My child has asthma. Is she/ he at risk due to COVID 19?

Currently it is known, that children and adolescents develop mild symptoms from COVID 19. Initially at the beginning of the pandemic, it was suggested that patients with chronic lung conditions such as asthma, have increased risk from COVID 19 disease. However, there are no data as of yet that the same thing applies to paediatric patients with asthma.

Studies thus far, even though limited, have shown that the number of children who had asthma and were sick with COVID 19 was small and even in those cases, the symptoms were mild, such as fever and cough. It is also significant that wheezing which is a characteristic symptom in asthma, was present only in 40% of the above patients. Therefore, we do not have evidence that children with asthma, have increased risk of having severe symptoms with COVID 19.

However, Global Scientific Committees for asthma, note that patients with asthma, should be compliant with their treatment including inhaled steroids, as prescribed by their doctor and their symptoms should be well controlled. In the event of asthma attack they can receive oral corticosteroids if it is necessary.

As the pandemic unfortunately persists, more studies and data are released which are expected to increase our understanding of the impact of COVID 19 to pediatric patients with asthma.