At least nine newborns who were less than a month old have overcome COVID-19 at Niloufer Hospital here during the second wave of the pandemic. Of them, at least one had severe form of the infection.
Doctors of the hospital’s Neonatology department have been helping another newborn fight off a severe form of COVID and other health issues from the past three weeks. Though he has recovered from COVID, he is yet to come out of other complications. Doctors are hopeful that the little patient will recover.
Head of Neonatology department at the government hospital, M. Alimelu said that the nine newborns had tested negative for the novel coronavirus soon after birth. However, they contracted the infectious disease a week or two later.
In several cases, paediatricians said the babies tested positive a few days after birth. Though their respective mothers had COVID, the newborns were negative right after birth. Tests were conducted again when the little ones were brought to the hospital with some form of illnesses.
Dr Alimelu suggested that only mothers take care of the newborns while maintaining precautions. “If someone is helping the mother, they should wear a mask, wash hands regularly and maintain hygiene,” she said. It was also suggested that multiple caretakers should not handle a newborn.
Specialist doctors have earlier urged families to refrain from meeting the new mothers and newborns immediately after delivery or a few weeks thereafter as chances of the infectious disease spreading is higher in closed spaces.
30 recover from MIS
Thirty children with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS) have also recovered at the hospital since the virus outbreak. Head of paediatrics department at the hospital, T. Usha Rani said that MIS in children is usually detected two to six weeks after recovery from COVID-19. She said this is a very rare problem detected in only 1% of children who had COVID-19, but the survival rate is good.
“Symptoms include high grade fever for more than three days along with some rashes, gastroenteritis symptoms such as diarrhoea, conjunctivitis, any bleeding abnormalities and cardiac problems. MIS-C has to be suspected if a child has high grade fever along with two of the remaining symptoms in the backdrop of COVID. The 30 children aged one month to 12 years who had this syndrome have recovered at our hospital,” said Dr Usha Rani.