Brodin, P., SARS-CoV-2 infections in children: understanding diverse outcomes, Immunity (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2022.01.014
Recopilado por Carlos Cabrera Lozada. Miembro Correspondiente Nacional, ANM puesto 16. ORCID: 0000-0002-3133-5183. 22/01/2022
ETOC blurb
Brodin summarizes the current understanding of immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infections in children and the possible explanations for the overall milder COVID-19 disease in young vs. older individuals. To explain the combined observations to date, Brodin proposes an energy allocation perspective to explain the mild disease, viral dynamics, and MIS-C in children and young people.
Summary
SARS-CoV2 infections mostly lead to mild or even asymptomatic infections in children, but the reasons for this are not fully understood. More efficient local tissue responses, better thymic function, and cross-reactive immunity have all been proposed to explain this. In rare cases of children and young people, but very rarely in adults, post-infectious hyperinflammatory syndromes can develop and be serious. Here I will discuss our current understanding of SARS-CoV-2 infections in children
and hypothesize that life history and energy allocation perspective might offer an additional explanation to mild infections, viral dynamics, and the higher incidence of rare multisystem inflammatory syndromes in children and young people.