Doctors of the Institute of Child Health (ICH) and Hospital for Children treated a two-and-a-half-year old child, who was wheeled in with paralysis of lower limbs after testing positive for COVID-19. The girl was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which is not commonly seen during early COVID-19 in children.
The child, a resident of Namakkal, had fever for a day followed by inability to use both lower limbs the next day. Her parents took her to a private hospital in Coimbatore, where both the mother and child tested positive for COVID-19, according to S. Srinivasan, State nodal officer, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Paediatric Intensive Care Unit.
The parents returned to Namakkal, from where a doctor referred the child to the ICH. “The child came to ICH on the third day of fever with paralysis of both lower limbs. She was admitted in the COVID-19 ward,” he said.
A team of doctors led by Luke Ravi and Dr. Srinivasan diagnosed the child with GBS, an immune-mediated disorder, which could be treated with immunoglobulin or through plasmapheresis, he said. “We took up the case with ICH Director Ezhilarasi and decided to give three doses of immunoglobulin to the child. After therapy, movement of the legs improved. The child started to walk with support by the fourth day after injection,” he said.
Dr. Srinivasan said COVID-19 in children presenting as GBS was not a common phenomenon, and that too, in the first week of the illness. “We know that GBS is triggered by acute viral infection. Now, we have seen a child affected early in COVID-19. We have seen cases of multi-system inflammatory syndrome in the second or third week of COVID-19 in children,” he said.
He added that early treatment helped in her recovery. Any delay could have led to disease progression. The girl was discharged after 10 days on Tuesday, he added.