New Delhi: The second wave of Covid-19 has is not only affecting the senior citizens, but children have also started coming under the wrath of the virus. Doctors have revealed that the virus under the second strain is more dangerous and has seen a significant increase in the number of covid cases among children less than 10 years old.
Speaking to Millennium Post Dr Meena J. Consultant, Pediatrics and Neonatology at Aakash Healthcare and Super Specialty Hospital said that last year, the spike saw a total positive rate of about 1 per cent in children.
"This time we are seeing an increase of about 10 to 15 per cent rise among children. These children are less than 10 years old. The number of cases in OPD has also increased. Another thing is that most of these children are symptomatic as well. Earlier it was just positive on screening, this time children are coming with a mild upper infection like vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, although the severe cases are quite low.
"Previous spike the pediatric was not that affected even the treatment was well defined," Dr Meena said adding that earlier there was no bed allocation for children but this time it is quite high.
Dr Gauri Aggarwal, IVF expert and founder of a lab that conducts RT-PCR tests here has said that the samples that they are receiving in their labs have seen a high rate of positivity. "We are also witnessing 50-50 per cent cases of symptomatic and non-symptomatic cases among children. As the government has not allowed vaccine for children, kids between the age group 1 to 16 are testing positive. The symptoms are mostly blocked nose, fever, running nose. The new strain is causing a lot of havoc and more people are getting affected by it," she said.
The first wave had seen few number of covid cases among children with medical experts saying that most of them were not even symptomatic.
Dr Rohit Arora, Head of Neonatology & Pediatric, at Apollo Cradle Hospital said, "It is assumed that the B.1.1.7 (the UK strain) and India's B.1..617 variants are likely to cause more infection in children. We are seeing more kids being symptomatic this time as compared to last time when a majority of children were asymptomatic. Watch out for symptoms such as a high fever that is lasting for 2-3 days; headache; body ache; vomiting; sore throat; red or pink eyes; and maybe loose motion."