India's surge in Covid-19 infections affecting young children - Hindustan Times

There is no centralized public data on how many children have needed hospital care due to coronavirus infection in India, but authorities in some other countries such as the US and the UK have recorded a rise in hospitalization in children due to the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

Doctors in various metropolitan cities in the South Asian country report an increasing number of Covid infections among children, with many of those infected by the virus showing symptoms such as fever, cough, chills, diarrhoea and respiratory problems.

The Indian Health Ministry said on Monday that only 5% to 10% of all those people infected have been hospitalized, compared with 20% to 23% during the previous delta variant-fuelled wave.

More Covid beds for children than recommended.

A report published by the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) in August 2021 recommended an expansion of existing health facilities for children in the country.

"The existing paediatric health care facilities are not robust enough to treat children on a large scale.

The existing Covid facilities should be augmented and the number of beds available should be enhanced by at least 10%," said the NIDM report.

Authorities in many states have reserved over double the Covid-19 hospital beds for children than recommended by experts out of fear of being underprepared.

I support the decision of states to have more beds ready than recommended," Raj Kamal Choudhary, associate professor of medicine at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital in the eastern state of Bihar, told Reuters news agency

Furthermore, India has some 139,000 Covid-19 ICU beds in total, compared with 195,390 recommended