PANJIM: Stating that the government is taking all preparatory steps to combat the anticipated third wave, Health Secretary Ravi Dhawan revealed that 16,246 children below the age of 18 years had got COVID since the beginning of the pandemic.
While this amounts to 11.34 per cent of the total number of persons that had been infected since the beginning of the pandemic, Dr Mimi Silveira, member of the expert committee on the third wave, said there were around 150 cases of children below the age of 12 since mid March.
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She added that most of the mild to moderate cases were treated in South Goa District Hospital where the symptoms were of fever or cough, while at GMC there were cases of children with co-morbid conditions like diabetes.
She added that in some cases, children got it after their family members or parents got it. She also indicated that young children tend to recover quickly and the amount of severe cases has been low.
Asked if there were any fatalities, she said only a few but they did not die due to COVID pneumonia as seen in adults but because of other reasons such as their co-morbid conditions, cardiac issues or cerebral palsy.
Speaking about the third wave, Silveira said the government will take a decentralised approach where only the serious and very serious cases will be admitted at GMC while the mild and moderate cases will be admitted at the district hospitals.
She added that two Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICU) of 30-bed capacity each will be kept ready for this at the Super Specialty Block. She also spoke about the Newborn Intensive Care Units (NICU) and High Dependency Units (HDU) where children will be needed to be given oxygen by machine.
Health Minister Vishwajit Rane tweeted of a full-fledged Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) to manage the anticipated third wave.
Dr Jagdish Cacodkar, who is the secretary of the committee revealed that they had paid attention to a webinar organised by doctors in Maharashtra on Sunday and reiterated that they will be following the treatment protocol as laid out by AIIMS.
He also revised figures of the likely-to-be-affected population stating that the age group of below 12 is in excess of 3.2 lakh and below 18 is around 4.5 lakh.
Cacodkar added that the 14-member committee had given the list of requirements in terms of infrastructure, equipment, medical personnel, nurses etc, which the government is looking at.
He added that Silveira, who is the head of paediatrics at GMC and Dr Ira Almeida, senior pedeatrician at Hospicio, will be conducting training for general practitioners, health officers and consultants in North Goa and South Goa respectively.
He added that the Goa units of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) are helping the government and private collaboration to tackle the third wave.
