Don't think we'll have serious Covid infection in children in future: Guleria
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New Delhi: Dr. Randeep Guleria, the director of Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), said on Tuesday that there is no evidence to suggest that the next wave of Covid-19 will cause serious infection in children. “I don't think we will have a serious infection in children in the future," said Guleria during a press briefing of the Union ministry of health and family welfare. Guleria said data collected from both the waves of the coronavirus 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," he said. "In many parts of the world where new waves are happening there's no data to show children are being severely affected," he added. 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, either they were immunocompromised or on chemotherapy. The healthy kids had mild illness and they recovered without being hospitalized," Guleria said. Hospitals across the country have started ramping up facilities for paediatric care after experts apprehended that the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic 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 Uttar Pradesh’s Noida. Guleria also said that the best way to avoid a subsequent wave of Covid-19 and counter misinformation on subsequent waves causing more harm to children is to follow Covid-appropriate behavior, avoid crowds and break the chain of transmission.
