By Sue-Ann Wayow
FIVE children, including one less than six-months-old, are being treated for Covid-19 in the parallel healthcare system.
And Trinidad and Tobago is expecting more children to seek hospital care with the presence of the Omicron variant.
Speaking at the Ministry of Health’s virtual media conference on Monday, Emergency Medicine Specialist Paediatric Emergency Department at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex Dr Joanne Paul encouraged parents to have their eligible children vaccinated against Covid-19.
She revealed that of the five children in hospital, three were critically ill and two were moderately ill. Four are being taken care of at the Arima General Hospital and one is warded at Caura Hospital.
Two adolescents, ages 14 and 15 have pre-existing conditions and were not vaccinated, the doctor said.
Dr Paul said there was an increasing trend with children in the infant stages, zero to five years old contracting Covid-19 and it was critically important that they be protected as much as possible as well as adolescents with comorbidities.
She also revealed that there was an increase in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). She said 69 children have had MIS-C in Trinidad and Tobago.
“We will probably see a surge in that,” she said.
Dr Paul said one of the main risk factors for children contracting Covid-19 under the age of 12 was obesity apart from cancer and other immunity deficiency syndromes.
Last week, Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram had stated that the Omicron variant could become the dominant variant for T&T in the next coming weeks and that there was a worrying trend with more children becoming seriously ill. He stated last week that eight were in the parallel healthcare system. There were now five.
Dr Paul echoed Dr Parasram’s statements concerning the Omicron variant.
She said, “Within the next one or two weeks, we should see some obvious response in terms of pure Omicron variant going through… What we are seeing with children, there definitely has been an increase in hospitalisation in terms of the trends we are seeing, three to fivefold increase in hospitalisation”
Dr Paul said there would be different categories, some might come in with a limb fracture and may also have Covid- that was a smaller group.
The larger group of children were the ones presenting with pure Covid-19 symptoms.
“Because it is so transmissible, you have an increase of Omicron coming through with regards to children, in terms of hospitalisation,” she said.
Dr Paul referred to trends noted in other parts of the world saying that fever was a common symptom amongst children and she also gave advice to parents as to how to take care of their children at home who may be exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms.
She said, “If you are in that vulnerable population, an adolescent that if you have a comorbidity or have some serious illness, please go to vaccinate. But if you do not have that, you are not sure in terms of if your child has any pre cardiac or pre-illness or pre anything that may evolve in a few months or so, you really want to cover your child who you presume is healthy, you want to make sure they have that protection.”
