The child’s family are residents of Daddu Majra, where no other Covid-19 patient has been diagnosed as of yet. (Representational)
The three-day-old infant girl who died Saturday night at PGIMER and tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday evening, passed away minutes after taking feed from her mother, according to official sources from the health Department. The child’s family are residents of Daddu Majra, where no other Covid-19 patient has been diagnosed as of yet.
“After feed, the baby became cyanosed with respiratory distress and was immediately incubated at the Civil Hospital in Sector 22,” said an official from the health department. The medical term ‘cyanosed’ suggests that the child’s skin turned bluish or greyish in colour, suggesting an acute lack of oxygen in the body. The infant’s mother delivered through a cesarean section on Thursday at the Sector 22 civil hospital.
The health department alleges that the baby was completely normal at birth and for the subsequent two days, and her health only deteriorated immediately after the mother gave feed to the child on Saturday night. After the infant’s health worsened despite the incubation, she was rushed to PGIMER where she was declared dead on arrival.
The Indian Express spoke to gynecologists and pediatricians in the city to determine what could have caused the sudden respiratory distress and subsequent death of the infant, and whether the Covid-19 infection complicated her prognosis.
“It is hard to determine how the infection truly manifests in such young children so quickly. However, from this case, I gather it is likely that she had some sort of respiratory distress since birth and the she got asphyxiated during the feeding because the milk went into the wrong pipe and her condition just exacerbated quickly,” said a gynecologist from the city. Doctors allege that the asphyxiation caused in the child due to feeding alone cannot be the only cause of death. “It is a possibility that the child was not monitored well and they missed out on a few signs,” added the gynecologist.
“It is most probably through the physical contact if the mother is the source, most research has showcased that milk does not carry the virus load,” said the gynecologist.
17 health workers sampled, 28 contacts quarantined
Since the mother was not tested before the surgery was performed on her, many health workers were exposed to her and at least 17 staffers have been sampled for Covid-19. Apart from them, the infant’s mother, father and three more family members have also been sampled.
A total of 28 contacts, including two neighboring families, have also been quarantined. Test results of all contacts are awaited.
13 more test positive
On Monday, 13 more residents from Bapu Dham colony tested positive for the disease, bringing the total tally of patients up to 275 cases. Apart from this, two patients from Sector 30 were discharged from PGIMER.