Assessment of Overseas Reports of Children with Multi-system Inflammatory Syndromes Linked to COVID-19 and Steps taken Locally

Mr Murali Pillai asked the Minister for Health what is the Ministry's assessment of overseas reports regarding children who may be affected by paediatric multi-system inflammatory syndromes linked to COVID-19 and what steps is the Ministry taking in Singapore to deal with this development.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Since end April 2020, countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain and the United States of America have been reporting cases of children requiring intensive care due to a rare paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome. A possible link with COVID-19 infection was suggested because some of these children had tested positive for COVID-19 infection. However, no strong evidence of such a link has been seen so far in Asian countries, such as Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Singapore.

In Singapore, as of 28 May, 61 patients below the age of 16 years have tested positive for COVID-19. These patients were either asymptomatic, or had only mild symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, and diarrhoea. None of these patients had the symptoms suggestive of the multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or required intensive care or high dependency care.

The Ministry of Health notes that this paediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome remains very rare, and information is still emerging. Nevertheless, MOH is monitoring the situation closely, and had issued an advisory to all medical practitioners on 11 May 2020 to refer potential cases that present with clinical features suggestive of this condition to the Children's Emergency at the KK Women's and Children's Hospital and the National University Hospital. MOH has also advised paediatricians managing COVID-19 cases to be watchful for this condition.