Children suffer seizures & fall unconscious after catching common infection as new variant takes hold – 5 signs to know

CHILDREN are expericing seizures and falling unconscious after catching Covid, scientists warn.

Younsters who catch the Omicron strain are signifcantly more likely to have an episode, than those struck by other Covid variants, Japanese researchers found.

Getty

Chidren who pick up Omicron are signifcantly more likely to have a seizure than those who catch other vairants[/caption]

Of children hospitalised with Omicron, 16 per cent went on to have a seizure, fall unconscious or be diagnosed with epilepsy.

This compares to just 2.4 per cent of those infected with another vairant.

Pirola, an offshoot of the Omicron strain is the newest vairant to take hold in the UK.

So far, the BA.2.86 strain hasn’t caused a huge uptick in cases.

And there is no evidence to suggest the strain causes a more severe illness than thers that came before it, such as Delta and Alpha.

Previous research found the virus can increase your risk of developing seizures or epilepsy within six months of being infected.

The increased risk was more noticeable in children than in adults and was also more common in those who had not been hospitalised with a Covid-19 infection, they found.

The latest study, published in Frontiers, looked at the symptoms of Covid vairants in children.

Researchers studies the health records of 771 children hospiatsed at Tokyo Metropolitan Toshima Hospital with Covid between January 2020 and October 2022.

Some 557 had Omicron while 214 children had non-omicron vairants.

Of the children infected with Omicron, 92 suffered a type of seziure.

The majority (76 per cent) expeience febrile seizures, which can happen when a child has a fever. They are relatively common and, in most cases, aren’t serious.

The remaining children reportedly suffered from more serious fits and one was left with an epilepsy diagnosis.

And just one child from the group who had another vairant experienced a seizure, are relatively common and, in most cases, aren’t serious.

The authors, from Kitasato University Hospital Sagamihara, Japan, said: “Based on the results of the present and previous studies, it can be concluded that SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants affect more children than do previous variants.”

They did not specify whether the children had been vaccinated.

A separate study into seizures among Covid patients have suggested the episodes could be brought on by changes to the immune system.

The 5 Covid symptoms to know

The Zoe Covid Symptom Study, which collects data on self-reported symptoms in the UK documented the same pattern.

It found a sore throat became more common after the Omicron variant grew dominant in late 2021, while loss of taste and smell fell to the wayside.

According to the Zoe study, other symptoms include: 

1. Runny nose
2. Headache
3. Tiredness
4. Sneezing
5. Sore throat

Pirola was first detected in Denmark in July this year and quickly became the dominant strain in the UK.

Government figures suggest numbers have begun to fall, after a sudden uptick in July through to September.

There were 5,694 new cases of Covid reported in England in the week up to November 4, according to the latest government data.

This shows a decrease of 18 per cent compared to the previous seven days.