• Ayodhia Pitaloka Pasaribu, Restuti Hidayani Saragih, Fahmi Fahmi, and Syahril Pasaribu.
• Department of Child Health, Medical Faculty, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia.
• Arch Iran Med. 2022 Nov 1; 25 (11): 737741737-741.

BackgroundIn December 2019, a cluster of viral pneumonia cases, later identified as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), was first reported in Wuhan, China, and then continued to spread to other parts of the world. COVID-19 is thought to be more prevalent in adults than children; therefore, information about COVID-19 burden and characteristics in children is lacking.MethodsWe gathered data on the profile and transmission in children with COVID-19 from data collected by the North Sumatera Provincial Health Office team. Data were presented as mean±SD and percentage. Statistical analysis was performed using STATA version 15.0.ResultsFrom April to October 2020, there were 1125 confirmed COVID-19 cases in children in North Sumatera, representing approximately 8.9% of all cases. Death occurred in 0.62% of the patients, and the children who died had underlying diseases. Four major clusters of COVID-19 infection in children were found in three Islamic boarding schools and one refugee shelter.ConclusionA high number of children in North Sumatera were affected by COVID-19, and mortality was found to be higher in children with underlying diseases. Major clusters were found in places with prolonged and repeated activities in close contact, such as boarding schools and a refugee shelter.© 2022 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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