Finding Ways to Detect COVID-19-Related Illnesses in Children

The National Institutes of Health has awarded eight research grants to refine new technologies for the early diagnosis of severe illnesses resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection in children. The new awards follow grants issued in 2020 to foster methods for diagnosing children at high risk for Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a rare, severe, and sometimes fatal after-effect of SARS-CoV-2 infection or exposure in children.

Link Between COVID-19 and Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C)

These highly innovative technologies and tools have the potential to greatly improve the care of children with SARS-CoV-2 infection and other fever-causing illnesses.

The awards are from NIH’s Predicting Viral-Associated Inflammatory Disease Severity in Children with Laboratory Diagnostics and Artificial Intelligence (PreVAIL kIds) initiative.

They are part of the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Radical (RADx-rad) program to support new, non-traditional approaches and reimagined uses of existing tools to address gaps in COVID-19 testing and surveillance.

Although some children develop mild or no symptoms from COVID-19, others will develop more severe effects, including MIS-C, which results in inflammation of one or more organs, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, and gastrointestinal tract.

The 2020 awards supported studies involving more than 7,400 research participants in four countries and yielded prototype methods and techniques for potential use in clinics, emergency departments, and for hospital inpatients.

Results from these studies include a laboratory technique for detecting specific immune cells associated with MIS-C; databases that help diagnose children at risk for MIS-C and severe COVID-19, based on certain blood proteins and genetic biomarkers.

A database was developed that can distinguish between MIS-C, Kawasaki disease (which has similar symptoms), and fever-causing viral and bacterial infections.

The new awards will allow researchers to continue their efforts to develop ways to rapidly diagnose MIS-C and identify those at risk for serious and long-term effects of COVID-19.

Earlier identification of those most at risk will allow for earlier interventions to prevent severe health effects.



Source-Eurekalert