Most Kids with MIS-C Report Few or No COVID-19 Symptoms: Study

A review of hundreds of cases finds that only a minority of patients noted being sick with a coronavirus infection prior to developing the severe inflammatory condition.

Written byKerry Grens

| 2 min read

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Since the COVID-19 pandemic began last year, more than 3,000 kids have been diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a serious condition linked to coronavirus infection that involves organ dysfunction, low blood pressure, fever, and other symptoms, and 36 children have died from it.

According to an analysis of hundreds of cases of MIS-C published in JAMA Pediatrics on April 6, most of the patients didn’t report having been ill with their prior SARS-CoV-2 infection before developing the syndrome. Of 1,075 kids with MIS-C for whom the authors had information regarding their bout with COVID-19, just 265 reported a preceding sickness, and low blood pressure, shock, cardiac dysfunction, and admission to the ICU were more prevalent among those who didn’t.

“It means primary-care pediatricians need to have a high index of suspicion for this because Covid is so prevalent in the society and children often ...

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Meet the Author

Kerry Grens
Kerry served as The Scientist’s news director until 2021. Before joining The Scientist in 2013, she was a stringer for Reuters Health, the senior health and science reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia, and the health and science reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. Kerry got her start in journalism as a AAAS Mass Media fellow at KUNC in Colorado. She has a master’s in biological sciences from Stanford University and a biology degree from Loyola University Chicago.
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