THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With low incidence of Covid-19 among children continuing to baffle the health department, the in-house experts have put it down to two possible reasons — reduced susceptibility or high incidence of asymptomatic cases.
Nonetheless, there are calls from within the department to establish the actual reasons behind this.
“This is not something unique to the state. World over, epidemiologists have been trying to crack the mystery. A proper understanding of why this is happening alone can provide an explainer,” said a health official.
According to the officer, understanding this is crucial since children could turn out to be a potential source of infection for adults and health workers as they cannot follow cough etiquettes as efficiently as the adults.
However, a member of the state medical board for Covid-19 said though the infection rate among children is low when compared to the adults, it might be due to a raft of reasons. But it will be premature to say that children are less susceptible to Covid. Rather, they should be considered as highly vulnerable, he said.
“Though there is a limited timeline data for infections in children, it has been observed that there are some differences in the clinical features among children when compared to the adults,” said the member.
One such major difference is that fever and cough are seen less frequently in children than in adults. Also, leucopenia ( reduction in number of white blood cells) is uncommon in children compared to adults. A study carried out in China found that there are fewer cases of severe and critical illness in children.
As per the official Covid death toll, only two among the 223 casualties belong to the 0-17 age group. In the case of patients, of the 58,262 positive cases reported, a mere 2,981 are below 10 years, with 4,154 belonging to the 10-19 age bracket, according to data collated by a private agency.
A senior health official said, “A study recently published in the Journal of Paediatrics says there is a higher levels of viral load in the airways of children than adults. Also, a majority of them didn’t show any symptoms of Covid infection. This is quite alarming.”
Further, the official called for the state expert committee for Covid19 and the state medical board for Covid-19 to analyse the study and make suitable decisions in the intervention programme in state, especially when it is bracing for a projected peak.