Decreased Incidence of Pediatric Neuro-Autoimmune Disorders During COVID-19 Pandemic Restrictions

Infections are hypothesized to trigger certain autoimmune diseases; however, there is a lack of epidemiologic data surrounding pediatric neuro-autoimmune disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our retrospective study assessed the incidence of pre-defined autoimmune disorders diagnosed at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, Canada, between October 2017 and June 2024. Inpatient and outpatient charts were queried to identify subjects with neuro-autoimmune disorders or type 1 diabetes as a nonneurologic autoimmune comparison group. Monthly incidences were calculated and compared between 3 COVID-19 pandemic restriction periods: the prerestrictions period (October 2017-March 2020), intrarestrictions period (April 2020-June 2022), and postrestrictions period (July 2022-June 2024). Poisson regression models were fit to the incidence data. New diagnoses of neuro-autoimmune disorders and type 1 diabetes were identified in 111 and 670 subjects, respectively. Incidence of neuro-autoimmune disorders, but not type 1 diabetes, decreased during the intrarestrictions period when compared to the prerestrictions period (incidence rate ratio = 0.57, 95% confidence interval 0.33-0.95, P < .05).