Covid-19: Children being infected, pose high risk
The burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) has been turned to a Covid-19 unit particularly for accommodating infected pregnant woman and children.
As many as 1760 patients aged up to 12, were admitted in this unit between May and December 2020.
Physician Sayeeda Anwar, head of the Paediatrics Department of DMCH, said many children test positive for Covid-19 even though they don’t have any symptoms. They are undergoing treatment at DMCH, the physician added.
Sayeeda Anwar said those children were admitted for treatment of different diseases including fever, cough, diarrhea and severe weakness.
Like elders, infected children also come round maintaining specific medications and health guidelines. But it is difficult to cure for those children who are suffering from kidney and heart related diseases.
Besides, many children are being admitted to DMCH with the symptoms of Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C) disease, including rashes in different parts of the body and swollen hand and leg.
The symptoms of MIS-C disease are similar to the symptoms of Kawasaki disease.
The disease, MIS-C, usually appears after Covid-19 and could be fatal for children.
Physician Prabir kumar Sarkar, deputy director (treatment) of Dhaka Shishu Hospital said till now around 170 patients have received treatment from their hospital. Majority of the children admitted to the hospital with different diseases. But some test positive for Covid-19 when the hospital conducts test before going through any type of surgery.
Some 15 patients have died in this hospital. Among them, seven to eight were below 28 days. It is yet to sure how they were infected with coronavirus since their mothers were not Covid-19 patients. However, these children were with some health complications, he added.
Apart from this, no statistics is available so far from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) as to how many children have been infected in the country.
Physician Mohammad Robed Amin, director of Non-Communicable Disease Control (NCDC), told Prothom Alo that children are being infected with Covid-19. However, there is no complete statistics as to how many children are being admitted to the hospitals and how many are being taken to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and how many have died. Some hospitals are keeping their information separately.
However, the condition of DMCH and Dhaka Shishu Hospital shows horrific scenario to the country.