Dangerous Alert : second wave of covid,newborns and children’s.

Data from the health ministry showed that more children have contracted the coronavirus in the second wave of the pandemic. In just the five worst-affected states – Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi – 79,688 children have been infected by the virus.

In Maharashtra, 60,684 children tested positive,of these children, 9,882 are under the age of five.In Chhattisgarh, 5,940 children were infected by the disease, with 922 of them below five.In Karnataka, the corresponding figures are slightly higher as 7,327 children have tested positive for Covid-19. As many as 871 of them are less than five years old and in Uttar Pradesh, 3,004 children have been infected and 471 among them are less than five years of age.

A doctor at Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia hospital conveyed that the Capital too was seeing a similar trend, and health ministry figures showed that Delhi logged 2,733 infections among children, with 441 of them in those below the age of five.One positive so far had been that children who contract the virus typically experience mild illness. Most children do not require hospitalization and very few die from the disease. Some children can develop a severe inflammatory syndrome, but experts say it is rare.

This generally mild picture had contributed to cases in children being overlooked. But emerging evidence suggest children not just play a bigger role in transmission than originally thought, but are increasingly symptomatic too, with some experiencing severe illness.

Soonu Udani, paediatrician and critical care specialist at SRCC Children’s Hospital in Mumbai, confirmed several children were coming with abdominal pain and severe diarrhoea, which she did not see in the first wave.

Working out how susceptible children are has been difficult. Pre-emptive school closures occurred in many countries, including in India, so fewer children were infected.The doctor urged parents to be mindful of their children’s health, saying they can also act as “silent carriers or super-spreaders” and spread the disease to other children and adults.