Strengths and limitations of a policy for handling and following up suspected pediatric cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection

A Mancheron; E Foucaud; S Brichler; L de Pontual; C Aupiais

doi:10.1016/j.arcped.2022.01.001

Strengths and limitations of a policy for handling and following up suspected pediatric cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection

Arch Pediatr. 2022 Apr;29(3):236-242. doi: 10.1016/j.arcped.2022.01.001. Epub 2022 Jan 19.

Authors

A Mancheron¹, E Foucaud², S Brichler³, L de Pontual², C Aupiais⁴

Affiliations

¹ Service de Pédiatrie, Hôpital Jean Verdier, APHP, Université Sorbonne Paris cité, F-93140 Bondy, France; Laboratoire de virologie, Hôpital Avicenne, APHP, F-93000 Bobigny, France. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Service de Pédiatrie, Hôpital Jean Verdier, APHP, Université Sorbonne Paris cité, F-93140 Bondy, France.
³ Laboratoire de virologie, Hôpital Avicenne, APHP, F-93000 Bobigny, France.
⁴ Service de Pédiatrie, Hôpital Jean Verdier, APHP, Université Sorbonne Paris cité, F-93140 Bondy, France; UMR-1123 ECEVE, F-75010 Paris, France.

Abstract

To compensate for the poor initial knowledge about pediatric SARS-CoV-2 infections and the limited access to non-urgent medical care during lockdown, a local telephone follow-up program was set up to remotely monitor children with confirmed or suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection at the pediatric emergency department of a French tertiary hospital. We retrospectively assessed 131 children. A total of 488 phone call attempts resulted in 293 (60%) teleconsultations. This telephone follow-up program was simple and appeared necessary in the first stage of the pandemic with an emergent pathogen. However, it was time-consuming and should be improved for further use.

Keywords: Coronavirus 2019 disease; Pandemic; Pediatrics; Telemedicine.

MeSH terms

COVID-19* / diagnosis
Child
Communicable Disease Control
Humans
Policy
Retrospective Studies
SARS-CoV-2