Children less affected by coronavirus

Islamabad : The illness caused by new coronavirus that has been given official name of COVID-19 by World Health Organization on Tuesday has so far claimed well over 1120 lives and the virus has infected over 44200 persons across the globe but only 10 per cent of the patients are found to be below 39 years of age.

Also it is notable that children seem to be almost unaffected by the new lethal virus though one new-born was documented to be found positive with Coronavirus 20 days after birth in China confirming vertical transmission.

Epidemiologist Dr Muhammad Najeeb Durrani who is Member Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network (GOARN) expressed this while talking to ‘The News’ on Wednesday.

He said among over 44000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, there are only a few cases of children though the reason behind the fact is not known at least at the moment. Fortunately, we have not seen children who die after contracting the disease in this current spell of epidemic caused by coronavirus, he said.

He added this is a strange phenomenon as nowhere in the world even in Wuhan city of Hubei Province in China, no significant number of children has even shown symptoms of the disease. Certainly, the matter needs further research that why the new coronavirus affected the least number of children, he said. He added that the schools were closed in China due to winter holidays at the time of emergence of the disease and it might be one reason behind extremely low incidence of infection among children.

Most of the affected people so far reported are from 40 to 59 years of age, perhaps they were already having co-morbid conditions or the children have some immunity because of which the virus affected child population only a little, said Dr. Durrani who has served as District Health Officer Islamabad.

He said Pakistan has an opportunity to learn a lot from the measures being taken by China and over two dozen other countries having confirmed patients of coronavirus illness to contain the disease.

It is important that to date, not a single suspect or confirmed patient having illness because of coronavirus has been reported in Pakistan. According to China, the rate of new cases has already started showing a fall though the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 is on the rise.