Debilitating long Covid symptoms affecting Aussie children

Long-term Covid side effects are affecting Aussie kids like Emily Buntine, who went from a straight-A student to being unable to attend school — and she’s not the only one feeling the effects.

Emily Buntine was a high achieving, straight-A student looking forward to entering Year 11, but since she caught Covid in January, time has stood still for the 17-year-old.

Diagnosed with Long Covid, her days are spent ­battling brain fog and physical exhaustion, anxiety and ­depression.

She can no longer go to school and she needs the ­assistance of her father Barney Buntine to carry on a ­conversation.

“It feels like an extended lockdown,” she said from her family’s Armidale cattle farm.

Emily caught Covid while on a family holiday, and while the flu-like symptoms cleared up pretty quickly, a raft of other issues emerged, lingered, and worsened.

Emily Buntine (second from right) at the beginning of the school year with her siblings Scarlett, Maddie, Emily and Josie.

“She felt very lethargic and we thought her recovery was slow. She got anxious, one day she was in a paddock and got lost and rang me really confused,” her dad Barney Buntine said.

“We sent her back to school, to start Year 11 but she couldn’t participate in conversation or throwing the ball around and realised things weren’t right then, so we cut her days down.

“She developed abdominal pain, we thought it was ­appendicitis but scans revealed nothing. She couldn’t follow anything in class.

“She is normally an A student, she was doing extension maths and extension English but she was struggling to comprehend anything.”

Emily no longer goes to school. She can read a little, and watch TV for short periods of time. She can try painting by numbers, and walking is difficult.

“I can watch a little bit of movies or episode but not for huge amounts of time,” Emily said.

Emily Buntine, 17, is still battling with major side effects as a result of long Covid.

Mr Buntine said: “It’s almost like an acquired brain injury, we sometimes think it is like early onset dementia, her cognition is really limited. For a kid who was alert and witty and pretty intelligent, she is like someone with a brain ­injury, the capacity to process stuff cognitively is really hard.”

An international study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the prevalence of long Covid in children to be anywhere from 5 to 10 per cent. Age was also a factor: long term symptoms were more prevalent in children 14 years and older.

The definition of long Covid is where symptoms ­persist three months after ­infection.

The most commonly reported persistent symptoms were respiratory and fatigue, weakness, fever and trouble concentrating. Emily also has headaches and joint pain.

“If I suggest walking up to the cattle yard, which is a hundred (metres away) and she be sore and tired after twenty metres,” Mr Buntine said.

“But the depression and anxiety is a really prominent feature, and I don’t blame her, she is grieving for a life that has been stripped away, she was a high achieving happy kid who couldn’t wait to start Year 11 and quite abruptly it got taken from her.”

Sydney Children’s Hospital Network infectious diseases paediatrician Dr Philip Britton said about 20 ­children have been treated for long Covid by the network since last year’s Delta outbreak.

“A consensus definition is Long Covid is a child who has persistent symptoms at three months and those symptoms have to be impacting on their ability to function, for a child that is usually attendance at school,” Dr Britton said.

“If you narrow that definition to persistent symptoms with an impact on function it is around to 1 per cent of frequency, and among those kids, it’s not just one thing.

“Some children will have persistent symptoms like gastro intestinal, and others who have broader set of symptoms most often including fatigue.

“It resembles what we see with post viral fatigue.”

Emily is under the care of Professor Andrew Lloyd, from the Fatigue Clinic at the University of NSW and the family has been told she will eventually recover.

Dr Britton said international data suggests children recover or improve over 12 to 18 months.

“There is a possibility she won’t return to school,” Mr Buntine said.