A 10-month-old baby in Dakshina Kannada has become the youngest person to be infected with the novel coronavirus in the State.
The child, from Sajipanadu village in Bantwal taluk, was suffering from fever and severe acute respiratory illness, and was admitted to a private hospital in Mangaluru on March 23. The child’s throat swab was sent for COVID-19 testing the next day and the result came back positive, a release from Ramachandra Bayari, District Health and Family Welfare Officer, said on Friday. The child’s condition is said to be stable.
All of Sajipanadu village has been quarantined as a precaution, with no one being allowed to enter or leave the village. The close relatives of the child are also under observation, and the process of contact tracing is on, the release said.
Meanwhile, a State government bulletin on COVID-19 said stated that the child had no history of travel to virus-hit countries. However, as per the preliminary investigation, the child had been taken to Kerala. A detailed investigation is in progress and six primary contacts have been traced and are under home quarantine. The child is now isolated at a designated hospital.
Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education) Jawaid Akhtar dismissed the possibility of this being a case of community transmission and said, “Maybe an infected person or a contact held the baby [in Kerala]. We have started the process of contact tracing.”
