BHUBANESWAR: Amid warnings of a third wave, Odisha is seeing a worrying rise in Covid infection among children with cases going up from around 12 per cent (pc) to 15.6 pc in the last few days.
Of the 3,639 new cases detected across the State since August 15 when the Health department began mapping of the paediatric population, 476 were children aged below 18 years.
Sources said only 3.5 pc children of 0-10 years and 8.5 pc aged 10-18 years were affected during the first two waves.
Director of Public Health Dr Niranjan Mishra said the cases among children are likely to surge further as they have not been vaccinated and there is every possibility of them catching the infection from adult family members.
“We have started paediatric surveillance to keep a track of the infection so that a targeted approach can be initiated. Now apart from the contacts, all symptomatic children coming to hospitals are undergoing RT-PCR tests. After a month, we will be able to analyse the trend,” he said.
The State also saw a marginal rise in daily caseload as 993 people tested positive in the last 24 hours as against 720 a day before. Among them, 138 were in the 0-18 years age group.With 419 cases, Khurda district accounted for nearly 42 pc of the caseload. The district with the highest 3,310 active cases continued to remain in the red zone.
The Covid toll soared to 7,086 after 65 more deaths were added following an audit with the maximum 15 deaths reported from Cuttack.The Public Health Director said the death of children below 18 was more during the second wave than that of the first wave due to the Delta variant. However, most of the paediatric patients are not developing any complications now and getting cured early, he added.