Pune: According to data shared by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), around 14 percent of the total active Covid-19 cases in the city are of patients below 18 years of age, which is busy climbing up the health infrastructure for treatment of pediatric patients in light of advice by some experts that the likely third wave might affect children more.
As per the data, over 484 children are among active patients of Covid-19 in the city as of June 9 with 71 of them recovering in hospitals, and in these, nine are on oxygen support. This year, between March 1st and June 9th, 26,292 children were tested positive for Covid-19 making up 9.73 percent of the total number of 2,70,337 infected cases in the second wave of the pandemic in the city.
‘The number of children getting infected with Covid-19 is higher in the second wave as compared to the first. Experts, too, have alerted that the third wave will affect more children. As of now, we have sufficient beds but we are giving priority to increasing the number of beds for children in case there is a further rise in cases,’ said a civic official. The improvement rate among children, though, is high at 98.13 percent with nine children (0.03 percent) yielding to the infection in the period.
To fight with the possible third wave, Pune civic body has prepared 29 health facilities for the treatment of children with Covid-19. Moreover, it has decided to hold a total of 573 beds, including 65 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds and 48 ventilators, for pediatric patients.
At present, PMC has 206 health facilities with around 12,000 beds for the treatment of Covid-19 patients. These include 767 ventilators, 624 ICU beds, 6,402 oxygen beds and 3,384 beds without oxygen support.
Post Your Comments