text: Persistent symptoms and decreased health related quality of life after symptomatic pediatric COVID 19 A prospective study in a Latin American tertiary hospital To prospectively evaluate demographic anthropometric and health related quality of life HRQoL in pediatric patients with laboratory confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 COVID 19 This was a longitudinal observational study of surviving pediatric post COVID 19 patients n 53 and pediatric subjects without laboratory confirmed COVID 19 included as controls n 52 was performed The median duration between COVID 19 diagnosis n 53 and follow up was 4 4 months 0 8 10 7 Twenty three of 53 43 patients reported at least one persistent symptom at the longitudinal follow up visit and 12 53 23 had long COVID 19 with at least one symptom lasting for 12 weeks The most frequently reported symptoms at the longitudinal follow up visit were headache 19 severe recurrent headache 9 tiredness 9 dyspnea 8 and concentration difficulty 4 At the longitudinal follow up visit the frequencies of anemia 11 versus 0 p 0 030 lymphopenia 42 versus 18 p 0 020 C reactive protein level of 30 mg L 35 versus 0 p 0 0001 and D dimer level of 1000 ng mL 43 versus 6 p 0 0004 significantly reduced compared with baseline values Chest X ray abnormalities 11 versus 2 p 0 178 and cardiac alterations on echocardiogram 33 versus 22 p 0 462 were similar at both visits Comparison of characteristic data between patients with COVID 19 at the longitudinal follow up visit and controls showed similar age p 0 962 proportion of male sex p 0 907 ethnicity p 0 566 family minimum monthly wage p 0 664 body mass index p 0 601 and pediatric pre existing chronic conditions p 1 000 The Pediatric Quality of Live Inventory 4 0 scores median physical score 69 0 100 versus 81 34 100 p 0 012 and school score 60 15 100 versus 70 15 95 p 0 028 were significantly lower in pediatric patients with COVID 19 at the longitudinal follow up visit than in controls Pediatric patients with COVID 19 showed a longitudinal impact on HRQoL parameters particularly in physical school domains reinforcing the need for a prospective multidisciplinary approach for these patients These data highlight the importance of closer monitoring of children and adolescents by the clinical team after COVID 19 