Via Eurosurveillance: SARS-CoV-2-related paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome, an epidemiological study, France, 1 March to 17 May 2020. The conclusion:
French surveillance data confirm the signal of the emergence of an inflammatory multisystem syndrome associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in children. The actual risk of this disease is difficult to estimate, as reliable data on the incidence of COVID-19 infections in children are not yet available. COVID-19 cases in children younger than 15 years reported to The European Surveillance System (TESSy) represent only 2.1% of all laboratory-confirmed cases. Under the conservative estimate of no more than only 5% of French children under 15 years having been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the risk of PIMS, based on confirmed, probable and possible cases would be fewer than two per 10,000 children.
In the short term, the risk of new cases of COVID- PIMS is likely to be very low in France, given the low circulation of the virus in France in the past few weeks. More data on this new syndrome will be collected through a research protocol that is currently being implemented. Countries with current high incidence of COVID-19 in the general population should consider this rare but severe delayed syndrome in children.
