How does Covid-19 affect children, and do they play a role in spread among families, new study seeks answers
A new US study is hoping to find answers to an important question: how does the new coronavirus affect children?
The study dubbed HEROS — Human Epidemiology and Response to SARS-CoV-2 — will also us understand the part that children play in the disease spread. Researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will spend the next few months studying 6,000 participants from 2,000 US families across 11 cities.
The virus tends to spare children as only a few go on to develop a severe infection. "Is this because children are resistant to infection with SARS-CoV-2 or because they are infected but do not develop symptoms? The HEROS study will help us begin to answer these and other key questions," Dr Anthony S Fauci, NIAID Director, said.
The HEROS study will fill critical gaps in knowledge by investigating how Covid-19 manifests in children, Dr Tina Hartert, lead researcher of the HEROS study, said in the NIAID statement.
So far, researchers only have information on children who are either tested or those who develop severe disease. "These data provide real-time guidance in a setting of limited test availability, but they don't enable us to understand the full extent of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the entire population," Dr Hartert added.
Experts are also curious about how Covid-19 affects children with asthma and other allergies. Preliminary data suggest that these children are less likely to catch the infection because they have fewer levels of a human protein called ACE2, compared to their non-allergic counterparts. This protein helps the virus enter and infect human cells.
Fewer proteins could mean that they are less likely to catch a severe form of the disease. The HEROS study, which will look at 2,000 American families, will compare how the disease plays out in children with and without allergic conditions. It will also test who gets infected with the new coronavirus and how the disease spreads in these families.
NIAID researchers will carry out the study remotely. Every two weeks, a caregiver will collect nasal swabs from every member of the family and parcel it to a lab for analysis.
Each participant will have to fill out online questionnaires about their current symptoms, social distancing practices, recent activities outside the home and recent exposure to people who are sick.
If a participant experiences symptoms, the caregiver will try to rule out the possibility of other viral infections through an online questionnaire. If the symptoms indicate Covid-19, the caregiver will then collect nasal swabs from all participants and a stool sample from the participant showing signs of the disease.
Lab tests will not only test for the virus, but it will also study will analyze cells collected in the swab. The analysis could help scientists link proteins with the disease risk.
In addition to nasal swabs, the caregiver will be tasked with collecting blood samples from each participant. They will then test the blood for antibodies against the virus, according to the statement.