The pattern of childhood infections during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

The rates of most paediatric infectious diseases declined during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions. However, after the gradual release of these interventions, resurgences of infections occurred with notable variations in incidence, clinical manifestations, pathogen strains, and age distribution. This Review seeks to explore these changes and the rare clinical manifestations that were made evident during the resurgence of known childhood infections. The magnitude of resurgences was possibly caused by a profound population immunity debt to specific pathogens in combination with the coinciding reappearance of viral and bacterial infections, rather than novel pathogen variants, increased antimicrobial resistance, or altered childhood immune function. As the usual patterns of paediatric infectious diseases were disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the consequences of a population immunity debt were unravelled, and new insights into pathogen transmissibility, disease pathogenesis, and rare clinical manifestations were revealed.