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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Allergy
Sec. Environmental & Occupational Determinants
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/falgy.2024.1512182
This article is part of the Research Topic Hypotheses Explaining the Allergy Epidemic View all 11 articles

Infants Born During COVID-19 Pandemic Experience Increased Susceptibility to Airway Hyperresponsiveness

Provisionally accepted
Idit Lachover- Roth Idit Lachover- Roth 1,2*Anat Cohen- Engler Anat Cohen- Engler 1Yael Furman Yael Furman 1Yossi Rosman Yossi Rosman 1,2Keren Meir-Shafrir Keren Meir-Shafrir 1Michal Mozer-Mandel Michal Mozer-Mandel 1Sivan Farladansky-Gershnabel Sivan Farladansky-Gershnabel 1,2Tal Biron-Shental Tal Biron-Shental 1,2Ronit Confino-Cohen Ronit Confino-Cohen 1,2
  • 1 Meir Medical Center, Kfar Saba, Israel
  • 2 Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Asthma, allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis, and food allergy are type 2 inflammation diseases. Since the 1960s, the prevalence of those diseases has steadily increased, presumably due to the "Hygiene hypothesis" which suggests that early exposure of infants to pathogens, siblings, and environmental dust, has a protective effect against the development of allergic diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic increased environmental hygiene due to lockdowns, masks, and social distancing.Objective: To compare the prevalence of allergic diseases among children born before and during the pandemic.Methods: The Cow's Milk Early Exposure Trial prospectively followed newborns until 12-months of age using monthly survey and examined milk allergy development. Some were born before the first COVID-19 lockdown in Israel (April 2018-March 2020), and some were born during the pandemic (March 2020-May 2021). The monthly surveys included questions regarding atopic comorbidities.Results: A total of 1,989 infants completed 12-months of follow-up. Among them, 1,086(54.5%) were diagnosed with at least one atopic disease. Among 235 infants born after the last lockdown, 162 were diagnosed with airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR)(68.9%), significantly more than in any other group. No other significant differences were found between the study groups.Conclusions: There was no significant difference in the development of atopic comorbidities between infants born before and during the pandemic. Significantly more infants who were born after restrictions were eased were diagnosed AHR. A longer follow-up period is needed to obtain a better understanding of the influence of the COVID-19 restrictions on the development of atopic comorbidities.

    Keywords: allergy, Atopic comorbidities, COVID - 19, Hygiene Hypothesis, Airway hyper responsiveness

    Received: 16 Oct 2024; Accepted: 27 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lachover- Roth, Cohen- Engler, Furman, Rosman, Meir-Shafrir, Mozer-Mandel, Farladansky-Gershnabel, Biron-Shental and Confino-Cohen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Idit Lachover- Roth, Meir Medical Center, Kfar Saba, Israel

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