Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, on Tuesday, stated that there is no evidence to suggest that the Covid 19 third wave will cause serious infection in children.
During a press briefing of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, AIIMS Delhi Director, Randeep Guleria stated –
“I don’t think we will have a serious infection in children in the future.”
The AIIMS Director Guleria said that the data collected from both the waves of the Covid 19 pandemic in the country showed that neither new variants nor the old ones caused severe infection in children.
“No data, global or Indian, has had any observations of children being affected more. Even in the data from the second wave kids who were infected had mild illness or co-morbidities.”
“In many parts of the world where new waves are happening there’s no data to show children are being severely affected,” he added.
There’s no evidence to prove that children will be affected in the #Covid third wave. According to the second wave data, Out of all the kids admitted in hospitals, 60-70% had co-morbidities or low immunity: @MoHFW_INDIA #Unite2FightCorona pic.twitter.com/pVkstNCH9L
— PIB India (@PIB_India) June 8, 2021
The AIIMS Director said that the majority of the children who were infected recovered with no hospitalization unless they had co-morbidities.
“The 60-70 percent of the kids admitted were with co-morbidities. The healthy kids had mild illness and they recovered without being hospitalized,” Guleria informed.
Hospitals across the country have started ramping up facilities for paediatric care after experts apprehended that the Covid third wave will be more severe for children.
Andhra Pradesh released a circular to vaccinate mothers of children below five years of age on priority and a similar step was taken by authorities in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
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