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Introduction: Pediatric hematology-oncology patients are assumed to be predisposed to severe COVID-19 disease and complications, but robust data from low- and middle-income countries is lacking. This study was designed with the primary objective of finding the prevalence and outcome of COVID- 19 in children with hematological or oncological diseases. Clinical characteristics of COVID-19, outcomes in terms of need for respiratory support, intensive care, mechanical ventilation or mortality, delay in therapy, and use of COVID-19 directed therapy were analyzed. Method: Retrospective review of all children with hematological or oncological diseases with confirmed COVID-19 managed at Patan Hospital from Jan 2020 to Sep 2021. Patients were screened according to the hospital screening protocol. The clinical characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 along with the delay in chemotherapy or local therapy were recorded. Result: Twelve children tested positive for SARS- CoV-2 during the study period, and one had reinfection with COVID-19, 9(75%) were oncology patients, while 3(25%) were hematology patients. Fever (83.3%) was the most common symptom, followed by cough (58.3%). Four (33.3%) children had mild infections, and 4(33.3%) had severe infections. Eight oncology patients had delays in starting or continuing chemotherapy or undergoing surgery due to COVID-19. The median duration of delay was 10.5 d (range-7-21 d). The delay in therapy in patients with COVID-19 was significant in comparison to children without COVID-19. Conclusion: The majority of pediatric hematology-oncology patients recovered from COVID-19 without sequelae. There was a delay in providing treatment to oncology patients due to changing protocols.

Introduction: Nepal is one of the countries which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and has resulted in high morbidity and mortality across all age groups including neonates. There has been a paucity of studies regarding maternal to neonatal COVID-19 transmission and the published studies also have a poor sample size to reach any definite conclusion. Hence this study was carried out to see the clinical profiles of neonates born to COVID-19 mothers. Methods: It was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The study was conducted at a tertiary care centre over the period of one year from April 2020 to March 2021 after taking ethical clearance from the Institutional Review Committee with reference number drs2105211526. Convenient sampling was done. All neonates born to COVID-19 positive mothers who were diagnosed by a real-time polymerase chain reaction of the nasopharyngeal swab during the time of delivery were included in the study. Data analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences 20 using appropriate tools. Results: A total of 105 babies born to COVID-19 positive mothers who were tested for COVID-19 infection were included in the study. Ten (9.5%) (3.89-15.10 at 95% Confidence Interval) of neonates born to COVID-19 positive mothers were positive for the COVID-19 virus. All the neonates born to COVID-19 positive mothers were discharged home except one case who had other comorbidities. Fever was present in four (40%) of COVID-19 positive neonates. Conclusions: There is a possibility of vertical transmission of coronavirus in neonates although the outcome is favourable.