Patna: Doctors sound note of caution amid rise in corona cases among children

PATNA: The second wave of Covid-19 has not only affected the youth, but several children as well. The deadly virus claimed the lives of many kids being treated at city hospitals in April and May.
According to health experts, most kids were asymptomatic last year, but now Covid positive children have symptoms like vomiting, diarrhoea, breathlessness, chest congestion, rashes, cough and high fever. Some of them even require hospitalisation and emergency care.
Dr Sanjeev Kumar, the nodal officer for Covid-19 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences-Patna (AIIMS-P), told this newspaper that during the first wave, senior citizens and people with comorbidities were generally admitted to hospitals.
“The second wave, on the contrary, is not just infecting young people, but children as well. Two kids, including a four-year-old girl and a 20-day-old baby, died of Covid recently,” he added.
Of the 1,284 patients admitted to the Covid ward of the AIIMS-P since March 22, 37 were children. Five of them died due to Covid-19 in the last one month.
“At present, two kids — a four-month-old and a three-year-old — are undergoing treatment at the hospital. They are stable and will recover soon,” Dr Sanjeev said, adding that medicines like Remdesivir and blood thinners were not given to kids as they responded well to conservative treatment.
At the Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH), four kids have died of Covid-19 while three are being treated by doctors of the paediatrics department.
The hospital’s nodal officer for Covid, Dr Mukul Kumar Singh, said, “During the first wave, a few newborns had tested Covid positive because their mothers were infected. This year, however, everybody is being affected. The increasing casualties among youngsters have also become a matter of concern.”
An associate professor at the NMCH, Dr B P Jaiswal, claimed that a third wave was likely to occur in October or November, but “it may not be very severe because most people will get vaccinated by then”.
The Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences has also geared up to tackle the rise in Covid cases among children. The hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Manish Mandal said, “We have a 40-bed ward for kids with six ventilators. The paediatrics intensive care unit (ICU) has eight beds with two ventilators and the newborn ICU has four beds.”