PANAJI: If during the first wave of the pandemic 6,508 children tested positive, the second wave took this number to 15,863.
A total of nine children having comorbidities have succumbed to the virus so far, data collected by the directorate of health services showed.
The youngest victim during the first wave was an eight-month-old baby girl from Savoi Verem who suffered from glycogen storage disease type-III, a disease that causes a build-up of a complex sugar called glycogen in the body’s cells.
There were five deaths during the first wave, of which three were in the one to three years age bracket. During the second wave, four succumbed to the virus, all of whom were over 10 years old.
The first casualty of Covid-19 among children was a 12-year-old boy in September 2020, who had leukaemia. During the first phase of the pandemic, the mortality rate among children was 0.076 % whereas during the second wave it was 0.0252 %.
The data also revealed that the number of children under five who were affected in the first phase were lesser than during the second phase. The same was true for children in the 16 to 18 years age group that saw as many as 1,452 contract the virus during the first wave with the numbers doubling during the second wave.
The number of children requiring hospitalisation during both waves was negligible.
As of Friday, the state logged 1,76,515 cases with 84 fresh infections reported during the day included.
With experts saying that the estimated third wave will affect a larger section of the paediatric population, the government has trained paediatricians both from private as well government hospitals and other staff.
Provision for beds has also been made at Goa Medical College’s super-speciality block that has been treated as a Covid hospital.
