Like the rest of the world, COVID-19 mortality rate among children low in Pakistan

As many as 3,120 children from the age of two days to 10 years have so far tested positive for COVID-19 in Pakistan since February 26, 2020. Only three of them lost their lives after contracting the viral infection, officials said, adding that only 11 children and teenagers of up to 20 years of age have so far died of COVID-19 in the country.

“A total of 3,120 children, less than 10 years of age, including 1,769 boys and 1,351 girls have so far tested positive for COVID-19 but only three of them, all baby girls, have died in the country so far. Similarly, 6,963 children and teenagers between 11 and 20 years have also been infected with COVID-19 but only eight of them lost their lives,” an official of the Federal Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination told The News.

Comparatively, lesser number of children and teenagers have contracted the lethal viral infection in Pakistan probably because their educational institutions have remained closed for the last three to four months but still the mortality rate is very low among them, federal government officials said, adding that only 11 children and teenagers of up to 20 years of age have died so far in the country due to COVID-19.

In the age group of below 20 years, only 10,083 contracted the viral infection in Pakistan during the last three months. Of the 11 children and teenagers who died of COVID-19 in the country, 10 belonged to Sindh, officials said, adding that a total of 1,192 children up to 10 years of age in Sindh had contracted COVID-19 and two of them had lost their lives.

Comparing Sindh with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), officials said 191 children under the age of 10 years had contracted the coronavirus infection in KP while in the age group of 10 to 20 years, 701 children and teenagers had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the province. Luckily, not a single person up to 20 years of age died due to COVID-19 in KP.

Yet a mystery

“The simple answer to the question why children are dying less due to the coronavirus infection is that we don’t know. Children up to two years of age have weak immunity and they are more susceptible to complications and deaths as compared to young people but this virus is behaving very differently among children,” said Prof Jamal Raza, paediatrician and director of the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) Karachi.

Prof Raza maintained that children usually contract viral infections more easily compared to healthier people and get seriously sick when exposed to pathogens causing respiratory illnesses, especially pneumonia, but in the case of the novel coronavirus, the virus was not proving as dangerous for children in comparison to the elderly.

“One of the reasons behind less mortality among children due to COVID-19 could be that less number of children were exposed to the novel coronavirus but still three deaths in over three thousand children is negligible and strange. Young children are already very vulnerable to other viral and bacterial infections and mortality among them is very high in Pakistan. Strangely, this virus is not doing any major harm to children,” Prof Raza maintained.

He added that mortality among children due to COVID-19 was very low worldwide and nobody knew the reason behind it. He called for initiating research on this aspect so that people from other age groups could also be prevented from the highly contagious and lethal virus.

Meanwhile, experts said although children were not at the risk of dying or developing serious complications due to COVID-19, they could spread it to their parents and grandparents, which could prove to be lethal for the elderly population in the country.

“Some people are calling for opening schools and educational institutions as comparatively, a lesser number of children have so far been affected with the novel coronavirus in Pakistan as in the rest of the world while the mortality rate among children was also negligible but they can be good carrier of the virus and can pose serious threat to vulnerable population, especially their parents and grandparents,” said Dr Afshan, a paediatrician and biostatistician working at a private hospital in Karachi.

She stated that experts all over the world were not worried about children contracting COVID-19 as most of the children who were infected with the virus remained asymptomatic while only a couple of hundred children had lost their lives due to the viral infection. She, however, added that the children could spread the virus in a large population if they were allowed to mingle at educational institutions.

“Epidemiologists fear that there would be an exponential rise in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Pakistan and other countries of the world if educational institutions are opened. Children and teenagers would infect each other and being asymptomatic, they would carry it to their homes, infecting their parents and grandparents, of whom many would get seriously sick and ultimately die,” Dr Afshan said.