The largest study ever to measure the seroprevalence of COVID-19 in children and youth in Canada will be piloted from Montreal.
Announced Thursday, the CURNLS study aims to better understand infection rates among Canadian children and adolescents, an aspect that remains poorly understood since the vast majority of COVID-19 cases are in the 0-18 age group. years have been mild or asymptomatic. Routine laboratory testing for COVID-19 has also been greatly reduced across much of the country, contributing to the current lack of data on this topic. “It is a way of monitoring what is happening at the community level, explained the spokesperson and research leader, Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, who is a pediatrician and microbiologist-infectiologist at CHU Sainte-Justine. It also helps us make public health decisions followingwards, in terms of vaccination recommendations and so on. »
For example, we can promote more vaccination in a region where we will see that few children and few young people have been infected, she illustrated. Five times over the next year, approximately 7,200 samples will be obtained and tested as part of the CURNLS study. The analyzes will be carried out according to three distinct age groups in the range of 0 to 18 years. The CURNLS study will seek to determine seropositivity rates due to infection and vaccination, differences in seroprevalence between children of different ages and from different regions of Canada, and associations between serological measures and related trends. viral transmission and vaccination rates, explained Dr. Quach.
“I think that knowing the proportion of children who have been infected will allow us to push further the other studies that we have to do, that is to say to understand the impact of this disease in the medium to long term,” she said. The first results are expected towards the end of this year. The CURNLS study is funded to the tune of $2.6 million by the Government of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She benefits from the network established for another CIHR-funded study, the POPCORN study, which is also led by Dr. Quach. The POPCORN study brings together pediatric health researchers from 16 hospital research sites across the country to monitor infections, vaccination and social impacts related to COVID-19 in children and youth.
Photo credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson.
