Los Angeles, Apr 7 (IANS): Over 12.8 million children have tested positive for Covid since the onset of the pandemic, according to the latest report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association.

Over 130,000 of these cases have been added in the past four weeks. Since the first week of last September, there have been nearly 7.8 million additional child Covid cases, according to the report, Xinhua news agency reported.

Children represented 19 per cent of all Covid cases in the US, according to the report.

For the week ending March 31, children accounted for 16.6 per cent of reported weekly Covid cases.

There is an urgent need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects, said the AAP.

"It is important to recognise there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children's health, but importantly we need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth," said the AAP.