The death of a four-month-old girl owing to COVID-19 at the Institute of Maternal and Child Health (IMCH) in Kozhikode on Friday morning trigged panic among the people at Payyanad and neighbouring areas of Manjeri in Malappuram district.
It is still not clear how and from where the child contracted the virus. The girl had suffered breathing difficulty at her house on April 17 and was taken to a private hospital at Manjeri by 12 p.m. Since she had pneumonia, the doctor advised the parents to shift her to the IMCH, a wing of the Government Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode.
Epileptic seizure
But she was admitted to another private hospital at Manjeri. The girl was finally shifted to the IMCH on April 21 when she had an epileptic seizure.
She was diagnosed with COVID-19 on April 22. The authorities, however, could not get adequate details to prepare her route map. According to a medical bulletin from the IMCH, she was referred to the hospital after she developed ‘seizure and poor sensorium.’ Though she had no history of contact with any high-risk or low-risk category of COVID-19 patients or any epidemiological link with the disease, she was admitted to the special intensive care unit as she had severe acute respiratory infection. Her throat swab samples were sent for lab tests and they tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
Ventilator support
Though she was administered antibiotics for pneumonia and given ventilator support, she continued to be in shock and had respiratory failure. She had a cardiac arrest and died on Friday morning.
Meanwhile, three COVID-19 patients were cured of the disease on Friday after treatment at Government Medical College Hospital, Manjeri. They were shifted to the step-down ICU from the isolation ward. While four persons are still under observation after being cured, two continue to be under treatment for COVID-19 at the hospital.
(With inputs from Kozhikode bureau)
