children with asthma are 6x more likely to be hospitalised for covid 19

Covid 19 hospitalisation is more likely among children and teenagers aged 5 to 17 who have poorly managed asthma. Over 100,000 young people in the UK may have gained benefits from vaccination during the pandemic period.

Between March 2020, and July 2021, over 63,000 of those in the study had clinically diagnosed asthma, with over 4,000 of them having PCR-confirmed Covid 19. Only 1.5% of these individuals were hospitalised. Confirmed Covid 19 was found in just over 40,000 of almost 690,000 young people without asthma. Less than 1% of these were hospitalised.

Results conclude that asthmatic children were six times more likely than non-asthmatic children to be hospitalised from Covid 19.

The main author of the study, Aziz Sheikh, concluded: “Understanding which children with asthma are at increased risk of serious COVID-19 outcomes is critical to ongoing policy deliberations on vaccine prioritisation. The “key takeaway” is that managing asthma for children is a “critical” step in minimising hospitalisation.

Chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, Sarah Woolnough, claimed the study “helps the JCVI to build a clearer picture about which children should be considered if it’s decided that 5–12-year-olds should receive a COVID-19 vaccine”.