KOLKATA: A 63-day-old child, the youngest Covid-19 patient in West Bengal, returned home on Thursday after a 23-day battle against the infectious disease at a private healthcare unit in Kolkata. The infant from East Midnapore district’s Contai area was on ventilator support for eight days.
The newborn was brought to the hospital when he was 40-day-old. Though his parents tested negative for Covid-19, his report came positive and doctors suspected the child might have got infected from the hospital where her mother was admitted or from the relatives of the family. The doctors struggled hard because there was no available protocol to treat a newborn who tested positive for Covid-19.
Apurba Ghosh, the director of the Institute of Child Health (ICH) at Park Circus, said the child is the youngest Covid survivor in Bengal and eastern India as well. "A newborn, who tested positive for Covid-19 with his mother in Pune, had to be put on a ventilator because of the infant’s immature lungs. But in this case, the child’s lungs were infected by the coronavirus," said Ghosh.
Doctors at the ICH said the child was admitted with high fever and signs of convulsions. "We conducted tests and suspected the child was suffering from pneumonia. Though we don’t treat Covid-19 patients here, but we conducted a test and the report came positive.
"Further investigations revealed the virus infected the infant’s lungs. The oxygen saturation level in his blood dropped to below 80. The infant was kept in a prone position in the Intensive Care Unit. We did not take any risk and decided to put him on a ventilator support system which continued for eight days," said a doctor.
Ghosh said the doctors followed the supportive treatment procedure to save the child’s life. "It was the same treatment process which is followed to deal with adult Covid-19 patients. We administered steroids and antibiotics to the infant. At a time, we suggested the parents to take the child to a state-run hospital that exclusively treating Covid-19 patients. But the mother of the newborn said she wanted to continue her child’s treatment at our healthcare unit," said the doctor.
The mother and child were released on Thursday and the parents left the hospital expressing their gratitude for the support of the ICH authorities and doctors.