6-month-old living with confirmed corona patients is still -ve

Sarfaraz Ahmed | TNN | Apr 21, 2020, 04:38 IST

Nagpur: The six-month-old granddaughter of the city's first Covid-19 deceased has surprised the doctors. She is in good health and has tested negative thrice for coronavirus even after living 14 days with positive persons including her parents.
On April 6, 13 family members were quarantined at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) isolation ward. Six of them were confirmed as Covid-19 positive on April 9. The infant’s parents were among the first to test positive.
Parents say there were other positive patients too before they arrived but their child continues to remain unaffected. “The hospital had also given her discharge card but all family members are quarantined. So we decided to keep her back with permission of doctors. She is being breast-fed,” they said.
On April 16, samples were taken again and most of them including the infant tested negative.
“Usually with respiratory viruses, children tend to become more unwell than adults and are responsible for transmitting more illness. However, this doesn’t appear to be the case with Covid-19,” infectious disease expert Dr Ashwini Tayade told TOI.
“We are seeing lower number of children infected compared to what we'd normally see with other respiratory viruses which is on average 0.9-2 %. And risk of complications among children is also on the lower side. It’s more of asymptomatic or mild infection,” she said.
She warned that among paediatric population, infants had higher risk of complications.
Well-known paediatrician Dr Satish Deopujari said that in the first six months, natural immunity is higher as babies are generally breast-fed. “The immune globulin gradually goes down in first three months and diseases start afflicting after six or seven months. The kid is likely to protected by the antibodies that come from mother’s milk to baby but a lot is still not known. WHO emphasizes on breast feeding in first six months and I believe this could be protecting the baby,” he said.
GMCH has currently 33 coronavirus positive patients along with the six-month-old negative infant. Most are from Satranjipura which has become an epicentre of infection following the death of the six-month-old’s grandfather on April 5 at Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hosptial (IGGMCH). The 68-year-old deceased’s sample tested positive for Covid-19 on April 6.
As of Monday, 45 persons including relatives and close contacts of the deceased have tested positive for the virus.
On April 13 and 14, TOI had highlighted the plight of the infant who faced uncertain future because of her parents were positive. Her six-year-old cousin, who too was brought at the GMCH, had tested negative the first time but turned positive in second test on April 13.