Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had an impact on anaesthetic care around the world, especially paediatric anaesthesia. Hospitals have weighed the dangers of a rise of resource-intensive COVID-19 patients against the possible morbidity of postponing elective surgical treatments. The unknown impact of COVID-19 on perioperative risk in disease-positive paediatric patients complicates these decisions. We searched the MEDLINE database for papers involving COVID-19-positive paediatric patients who received general anaesthesia. A total of eight papers satisfied the criteria for inclusion, and they described a total of 20 cases. Preoperative COVID-19 symptoms were noted in nine patients, and one perioperative fatality was reported. Overall, further research is needed to expand the number of patients and accurately estimate the perioperative risk.
