Sars-Cov-2 and Headache in Children and adolescents

Abstract text (incl. figure legends and references)

Introduction: Headache is identified as a common post-COVID symptom experienced by COVID-19 survivors. Post-COVID headache can be presented in a broad spectrum like headache attributed to systemic infection, increasing intensively and frequency of already existing primary headache and also late-onset new daily persistent headache.

Objectives: Accumulating evidence suggests that that headache onset during the presymptomatic or symptomatic phase of COVID-19 may resemble tension-type or migraine headache. Headache itself associated with a shorter symptomatic period. Our objectives were to determine correlation between Covid 19 and headache in children and adolescents.

Methods: We have observed 59 patients with post-COVID headache, 21 boys and 38 girls. Migraine was diagnosed in 19 patients, cluster type headache in 4 and stress-related (tension) headaches in 31. Also, Study included 46 patients with headache, but they had no Sars-Cov-2. Children"s age was 6–17 years in both group. Sars-Cov-2 was identified by PCR test and Headache was assessed by daily dairies and clinical examination.

Results: Children with SARS-CoV-2 illness and pre-existing Headaches were three-and-a-half times more likely to develop worsening of Headaches than those without pre-existing Headaches. Compared with the control group, on a daily basis the number and intensity of headache were almost more than a third in patients who had Covid 19 in past.

Conclusions:Cases of long coronavirus disease (COVID) headache have already been documented in adults, but literature on similar cases in children and adolescents is scant. Although the association between new daily persistent headache and COVID-19 remains unclear, these cases highlight the importance of awareness of the neurological sequelae of novel coronavirus infection in children and adolescents.