Functional immune responses after the use of immune-modulatory therapy for PIMS-TS.

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COVID19 does not affect children in the same way as adults have severe respiratory illness. A new syndrome attributed to COVID19 has been described in children and is called "Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome temporally-associated with SARS-CoV2" (PIMS-TS). It is rare, affecting 2 in 100,000 children 2-4 weeks after being exposed to the new coronavirus. It causes multisystem inflammation presenting with fever, rash, abdominal pain or compromise functioning of the heart or nervous system, and treatment for most cases is supportive. However some children require medications to suppress the inflammation including high-dose steroids and other immune-modulatory therapies. As this is a newly described syndrome it is not known which immune-modulatory therapy is best and what effect PIMS-TS and these therapies will have on the child's immune system in the medium-long term after they recover from the illness.Our study integrates with the existing follow-up of children with PIMS-TS and proposes to screen the child's immune system at 6 weeks and 6 months after PIMS-TS to explore the impact of the illness and the immune-modulatory medicines used. We hope to determine: a) if the illness or medicines used have a lasting affect on the child's functional immune system; b) which medicines might be better; c) which children might benefit from further monitoring or intervention to ensure optimal health of their immune system and ability to fight infections in the future.