Washington, Feb 16 (IANS): More than 2.9 million child Covid cases have been added in the US in the past 4 weeks, and over 12.3 million children in the country have been infected since the onset of the pandemic, according to the latest report of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association.

Covid cases among children have spiked dramatically across the US during the Omicron variant surge, Xinhua news agency reported.

Almost 4.5 million child cases were reported since the beginning of January. For the week, ending February 10, nearly 300,000 additional child Covid cases were reported, according to the report published late Monday.

This marks the 27th week in a row when child Covid-19 cases in the US are above 100,000. Since the first week of September, there have been nearly 7.3 million additional child cases, according to the AAP.

"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. 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 report.