Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Epilepsy in Childhood: A Prospective Cross Sectional Study from Sudan

Background: Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder affecting around 1% of children. The incidence in Sudan is likely to be higher given the high rate of genetic disorders related to consanguity and acquired disorders caused by CNS infection and birth injury. Epilepsy can be idiopathic or non-idiopathic, symptomatic epilepsy indicates a known cause while cryptogenic epilepsy implies a presumed unknown cause. Objective: To understand the demographic and clinical characteristics of epilepsy in children in the setting of a tertiary epilepsy clinic in Khartoum, Sudan. Methods: This is a hospital-based cross sectional study recruiting patients with epilepsy attending a tertiary pediatric neurology clinic. All patients attending the clinic in the 6 month period were included. Data was collected by medical students and was analyzed on IBM SPSS Version 20.0 in a descriptive fashion. Results: 284 Children were recruited. The mean age for children with epilepsy was 5.74 (range 0-12 Years). Females constituted 59.9%; while 94.7% of patients were of low socioeconomic status. The most common type of seizures found were generalized tonic clinic at 51.8% (147/284), followed by focal seizures at 21.1% (60/284). 71% of our patients (201/284) had no identifiable cause (idiopathic), while 29% were non-idiopathic. Of the non-idiopathic group; 41% were due to congenital anomalies, followed by HIE at 24.1%, infections at 16.9% trauma at 10.8% and tumors at 7.2%. Only 18.3% (52/284) had a positive family history of epilepsy. Conclusions: There appears to be a higher incidence of epilepsy in Children with low socio – economic status with a slight female predominance. The incidence of idiopathic epilepsy appears to be similar to inter-national figures. We recommend broader community based and long-term studies for better understanding of epilepsy in Sudan.

Are pediatric patients with epilepsy at higher risk for COVID-19 Retrospective analysis from Sidra Medicine, Doha-Qatar

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), spread in few months from a small focus in Wuhan (Hubei province, China) to over 28 million people worldwide , COVID-19 is often more severe in people 60+yrs or with health conditions like lung ,heart disease, diabetes or conditions that affect their immune system (1). Several countries independently adopted strict containment measures to slow the local spread of SARS-CoV-2. As other countries, widespread lockdown measures were applied in Doha –Qatar from March 17 to June 1st 2020 that restricted physical contacts, individual movements including school attendance. This reflected during the beginning of the academic year 2020-2021 by parental fear to send their children with epilepsy back to their school considering that epilepsy could be a risk factor for covid19 infection. The prevalence of epilepsy in children ranges from 3.2 to 5.5 per 1000, being highest in the first year of life, but matching adult rates by the end of the first decade (2). Epilepsy in children is the second greatest neurological disorder burden worldwide (3), often associated with cognitive and psychiatric comorbidities (4). These patients were not highly susceptible to COVID-19 during the pandemic, the estimate rate of infection among pediatric patient with epilepsy was around (0.4%) for those who became sick. Meanwhile Viral infection is a risk factor for seizures in children with certain developmental and epileptic encephalopathies (DEE) with fever sensitivity, such as Dravet Syndrome and SCN1A-related phenotypes. We aimed to assess if the COVID-19 infection affected children with epilepsy in a higher rate than other children.