The changing epidemiology of PIMS-TS across COVID-19 waves: prospective national surveillance, January 2021 to July 2022, England

Abstract

In April 2020, a rare but serious paediatric Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (PIMS-TS, also known as MIS-C) was identified, which was temporally and geographically associated with SARS-CoV-2. In England, we estimated a PIMS-TS risk of 0·045% (95% credible interval, 0·035–0·068%) after SARS-CoV-2 infection in <15 year-olds, with a lag of 2–6 weeks. These results were used to parameterise a model to predict new PIMS-TS cases based on estimated childhood SARS-CoV-2 infection. SARS-CoV-2 infection rates were derived using the PHE-Cambridge real-time model, which uses multiple data sources to estimate national incidence in addition to laboratory-confirmed cases, which likely significantly underestimates true infection rates. PIMS-TS cases during the first pandemic wave were derived from national surveillance, and, from November 2020, using a new emergency ICD-10 code (U07.5, Multisystem inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19)in Secondary Uses Services (SUS, NHS Digital, Leeds, UK), a national administrative database used by National Health Service hospitals to record all admissions, emergency department attendances and outpatient appointments in England. The outputs of this model were used to direct healthcare resources and inform policy during late 2020 and early 2021.

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DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2022.10.017

Repository URI

https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/322006/