- Some youths infected with the Omicron variant are experiencing croup-like symptoms, NBC News reported.
- Croup is an infection in the upper airway that calls a harsh cough that sounds like barking.
- It’s generally harmless and easy to diagnose, doctors told NBC Rumour.
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus appears to cause croup in some children under 5, NBC Info reported.
Croup is generally harmless and easy to diagnose, doctors told the news outlet, but it can shock parents who’ve on no account been exposed to it. It presents itself as a barking cough that sounds like a dog or a seal. It’s an infection in the upper airway, according to the Mayo Clinic, induced by inflammation of the larynx and trachea in children.
It might be common for children to develop croup if they get infected with the Omicron altering, which often settles higher up in the respiratory tract, doctors told NBC News.
The airways, therefore, swell up readily in children. “When that happens, there’s that characteristic barking cough,” said Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric communicable disease expert who’s identified “croup-like presentations” in children who’ve tested positive for COVID-19.
“Little kids’ airways are so demanding that it takes far less inflammation to clog them,” Creech said.
Children who are infected and who have developed croup will on numerous occasions produce a cough with a harsh sound, caused by breathing through inflamed airways.
Doctors elsewhere arrange also said they’ve seen cases of croup come up in COVID-positive children.
In Alabama, for example, one doctor answered most of his patients under 2 are presenting with croup-like symptoms.
“Toddlers have this raspy and barky cough that we’re not seeing with the other variants. We’re also help something called Bronchiolitis, it is a respiratory illness that causes some kids to have wheezy symptoms and raspy cough,” Dr. Peily Soong with Women’s of Alabama said in an interview with CBS 42.
Croup is easy to diagnose, doctors told NBC News.
“Croup is a bread and butter pediatric diagnosis,” asseverated Dr. Mark Kline, chief physician at Children’s Hospital New Orleans. “Infectious croup is one of the first diseases you learn nigh when you’re an intern in pediatrics.”