Apr 01 Detectable SARS-CoV-2 Viral RNA in Feces of Three Children during Recovery Period of COVID-19 Pneumonia
Tongqiang Zhang, Xiaojian Cui, Xue Zhao, Jinhu Wang, Jiafeng Zheng, Guifen Zheng, Wei Guo, Chunquan Cai, Sijia He, Yongsheng Xu
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a new emerging infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). After its first appearance in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, COVID-19 quickly spread around the world.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) statement on March 13, 2020, more than 132.500 confirmed cases have been recorded worldwide. However, case reports in children are rare, resulting in a lack of evidence to prevent and control infection of children.
Here, we report 3 cases of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 diagnosed from February 3 to 17, 2020 in Tianjin, China. These three cases experienced mild illness and recovered soon after treatment, and the throat swab nucleic acid became negative within 14, 11, and 7 days after diagnosis, respectively. However, after being discharged, all three cases were SARS-CoV-2 positive in stool samples within 10 days, even though they remained nucleic acid negative in throat swab samples. Therefore, It is necessary to be aware of the possibility of fecal-oral transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection, especially in cases of children.