Press release
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
The National Institutes of Health has launched a new research effort to understand how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, affects children, who account for about 13% of all COVID-19 cases in the United States United. The effort is called Collaboration to Assess Risks and Identify Long-Term Results for Children with COVID (CARE for Children with COVID). This research program is developing and funding studies to investigate why some children are at greater risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection than others, why symptoms vary between infected children, and how to identify children at risk for serious SARS-CoV-2 disease. CoV -2 infection. Research on the latter issue is particularly focused on multisystemic inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a life-threatening condition marked by severe inflammation of one or more parts of the body, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin , eyes and gastrointestinal organs.
The program is led by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The research conducted by the CARING for Children with COVID is partially supported by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
“This effort stems from NIH’s commitment to understanding the spectrum of risk that SARS-CoV-2 poses to children and identifying interventions to improve their short and long-term health outcomes,” said the Director of NICHD and CARING for Children with COVID co-president Diana Bianchi, MD
Based on current data, the majority of children with SARS-CoV-2 infection do not develop serious illness. However, those who develop MIS-C may experience prolonged fever and severe abdominal pain and may progress to shock. Although most children with MIS-C survive, its cause and long-term effects remain largely unknown. There is also early evidence that some children with asymptomatic or mild infection may develop long-term symptoms such as fatigue, muscle and joint pain and breathing problems.
“While much of the devastation caused by COVID-19 is on older and more vulnerable populations, it is affecting children in ways that we are just beginning to understand,” said Gary Gibbons, MD, director of NHLBI and co-president of CARING for Children with COVID. “That is why this research and these networks are so critical.”
Specifically, the program has developed new research protocols for three clinical networks with locations across the country, to include children with SARS-CoV-2 infection and related conditions, including MIS-C:
CARING for Children with COVID also includes Predicting the Severity of Viral-Associated Inflammatory Diseases in Children with Laboratory Diagnosis and Artificial Intelligence (PreVAIL kIds), a research funding program to encourage the development of approaches that identify children at high risk of developing MIS -Ç. PreVAIL kIds is funded by the NIH’s Radical Rapid Diagnostic Acceleration (RADx) program (RADx-rad) to support new, non-traditional approaches and reinvented uses of existing tools to address gaps in COVID-19 testing and surveillance.
Although the studies supported by CARING for Children with COVID have slightly different objectives, all will collect data on a basic set of health measures that can be further analyzed between studies. Data on CARING for Children with COVID activities will be made available on various NIH web platforms to allow researchers to conduct additional analyzes and make further discoveries.
More information about the effort is available on the CARING for Children with COVID website at https://caring4kidswithcovid.nih.gov.
Regarding the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, improve the lives of children and adolescents and optimize skills for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov.
About the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI): NHLBI is the global leader in conducting and supporting research in heart, lung and blood disorders and sleep disorders that advance scientific knowledge, improve public health and save lives. For more information, visit https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):
NIH, the country’s medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The NIH is the leading federal agency that conducts and supports basic, clinical and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments and cures for common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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