NRI doctor’s 2-year-old son first kid in Lucknow to test positive for Covid-19

Vivek Singh Chauhan | TNN | Updated: Apr 7, 2020, 07:52 IST

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LUCKNOW: The city recorded its first Covid-19 child patient on Monday when a two-and-a-half-year-old boy tested positive to the virus. He has been quarantined at KGMU.
He is the son of the 35-year-old lady doctor who was the city’s first coronavirus patient. The boy is the fourth member of the family to test positive after his mother and grandparents.
The woman doctor was discharged from KGMU recently after she recovered, but she was back in the medical university’s isolation ward on Monday to take care of her son. Doctors allowed her because the boy is too small to be kept alone. The child’s condition is stable, said doctors.
The woman survivor’s 75-year-old father-in-law, a retired colonel, and his wife (73) are under treatment at the Central Command Base Hospital after they tested positive on March 30-31.
On Monday, the former army officer’s test report came negative, but his wife’s was still positive. Doctors said the elderly couple was stable and added that they were braving the situation with courage, for which Army personnel and their families are known.
The survivor’s husband, sister-in-law and two domestic helps had tested negative and were discharged from the hospital with the advice to remain quarantined in the home for 14 days.
The survivor and her husband, both doctors based in Toronto, along their son had arrived in Lucknow on March 8 on a vacation, but it went awry, with four members having tested positive to coronavirus. “The boy was tested for coronavirus last Tuesday but the result was “equivocal”, meaning that viral load was at the borderline. He was tested again after 2-3 days and the report came positive,” said CMO, Lucknow, Dr Narendra Agarwal.
“The relief is that the child is asymptomatic, that is, the virus has been found in the body but it has not caused much harm. There are no symptoms such as cough, fever or breathlessness associated with the disease,” said in charge, isolation unit of KGMU, Dr Abhishek Bahadur Singh .
The boy’s mother tested positive on March 10 and was admitted to KGMU on March 11. She recovered within 11 days and was discharged on March 21. Tests done on other family members on March 13 came negative, but they were advised self isolation for 2-3 weeks. However, the woman’s mother-in-law was admitted to Base Hospital where she tested positive on March 31. Her father-in-law was tested the next day and found positive to Covid-19. Thereafter, the entire family was shifted to isolation in SPM Hospital and underwent tests again. All, including the survivor, were found negative except the kid.
Doctors said though the kid is asymptomatic, he has been kept in the hospital for round-the-clock monitioring. Also, an infected person may be asymptomatic, but sheds virus and may infect others.
“His mother has already been treated, which means antibodies against the virus have developed in her body. The immunity will last upto two-three years preventing recurrence. Worldwide, hardly any case of recurrence has been reported so far,” said Prof Jyotsna Agarwal of RMLIMS.