Three-year-old CHILD tests positive to coronavirus as Western Australia records three new cases 

A three-year-old child has tested positive to coronavirus in Western Australia as the state recorded three new cases bringing the state’s total to 589 on Sunday.

The child is a Western Australian citizen who had contact with  a known case, had recently returned from overseas and is now in hotel quarantine.

The other two cases are also returnees in hotel quarantine including a woman in her 60s from WA and a man in his 30s from interstate.

The news came as one of the coronavirus patients from the Al Kuwait livestock ship was hospitalised.

The crew member was admitted to the Royal Perth Hospital overnight and is the only patient being treated in hospital so far. 

There are now 28 active cases in the state, including 20 from the Al Kuwait ship, which remains stranded at Fremantle Port.  

The new infection of a young child comes less than a week after two school students were found to have coronavirus in Sydney’s east: one at Moriah College and one at Waverley College.

The Al Kuwait was stranded yesterday at Fremantle port. The live export ship is responsible for 20 of the state’s 28 active cases

The discovery of the infected children came just one day after NSW Public schools opened full-time.

The Waverley student that tested positive is in Year 7, while the Moriah student is in Year 5.

The independent colleges are located less than 2km away from each other.

Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said on March 23 that ‘very, very few children contract COVID-19’.

‘All of the international data shows that it’s very, very uncommon for children to get symptomatic disease,’ he said at the time.

‘Let me also say again, we don’t know whether children have a significant role in transmission. We have not seen evidence of major transmission amongst schools in children.’

A study in China, finished in February and published in the medical journal JAMA, found that almost one in ten patients in the country were under the age of 30 

Daily Mail Australia asked the Federal Health Department if there is any update to this advice. 

Health responded that out of Australia’s 7195 total cases, 219 or 3 per cent were in children under 18 years.

In school children aged five to 17 years there have been 156 cases or 2.1 per cent of the total.   

‘Globally, COVID-19 infections are less frequently observed in children, with their illness tending to be milder compared to adults,’ a departmental spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.

‘Evidence globally highlights that their odds of infection is much lower compared with adults. Additionally, child-to-adult transmission appears to be uncommon.’

In recent weeks however, a new inflammatory illness linked to coronavirus in children has emerged.

The new illness, is said to be similar to Kawasaki disease and has been identified in more than 100 children in New York State, where it was linked to three deaths.

Some of the children with the mystery illness have required hospitalisation including in intensive care.

The disease is seen in children who previously had coronavirus and has a range of  symptoms including prolonged fever, abdominal pain, low oxygen levels (or shock), rashes and conjunctivitis, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Many of the children also developed inflammation of the heart. 

The rare syndrome has been recorded in 14 other US states.

More than 50 cases of the illness have been recorded in the UK and in European countries including Spain, France and Switzerland.

It has been officially named ‘paediatric inflammatory multi-system syndrome temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2’ or PIMS-TS for short. 

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy commissioned Australia’s top paediatric experts to prepare a report on the illness for the National Cabinet meeting earlier this month.