The COVID-19 first emerged in China and eventually declined. The country is no more reporting new cases and it has even lifted the lockdown from Wuhan, the epicenter of coronavirus. Currently, the virus is spreading like anything, outside China and countries like Italy, UK and the USA are going through the worst phase of this outbreak.
Health safety concern regarding coronavirus (COVID-19) is high, however, the risk for severe symptoms is still low in children. Up until now, most revealed cases of coronavirus have been reported in adults. Children who do get it appear to have milder infections than older people or adults. Surprisingly, some Chinese researchers have observed newborn babies showing mild symptoms of coronavirus suggesting the pandemic is not completely over.
New research published in the European Respiratory Journal finds four cases of COVID-19 infected newborn babies in China. None of them showed severe symptoms. None of these infant patients required mechanical ventilation or intensive care suggesting the infection is minor.
This research is done by Dr. Zhi-Jiang Zhang and colleagues at Wuhan University in China. The team reports that all of them were COVID-19 infected when born to mothers. These four newborn babies were delivered by cesarean section and three of them were separated from their mothers.
The analysts state the fast spread of viral infection shows that there may also some other cases of newborn babies with COVID-19 in the country but the researchers were unable to find.
Dr. Zhang finds that coronavirus is highly contagious and this study suggests that intrauterine transmission can’t be precluded, however, the prognosis is useful for both pregnant ladies and infants.
The chief physician of Wuhan Children Hospital’s neonatal medicine department, Zeng Lingkong, tells that it is important to focus on mother to child as it could be a possible route of coronavirus transmission. But it may also possible that the child gets infected after birth from having close contact with the mother.
Researchers suggest that that the individuals with no symptoms or mild, almost unnoticeable symptoms may be driving the infection. That will make the spread of the virus more complicated.
WHO finds that a single infected person will go on to infect, on average, between 1.4 and 2.5 additional people.
Most passings right now in older people and the individuals who have health problems like heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.
An infection expert from the European Respiratory Society and a coordinator for the national German COVID-19 task force, Professor Tobias Welte tells that It’s imperative to secure pregnant ladies and infants against COVID-19. It’s also mandatory to monitor the newborn babies carefully to provide them quick treatment and to protect them from any severity of COVID-19. At this stage researchers despite everything don’t know whether there are any longer-term consequences of this infection.
Research groups and pharmaceutical companies are attempting to build up an antibody that can protect individuals from the disease. But vaccine development takes a lot of time. Even if everything goes smoothly, it will be around a year to 18 months before one is available.
Perhaps the most ideal approaches to slow the spread of infection is by avoiding others, which is called “social distancing.” That gives an infection less chance to bounce from one person to another person. It’s the reason everybody is being asked to remain at home. These measures are proved useful in slowing the spread of the virus. If fewer individuals become ill at once, it’s simpler for medicinal services suppliers to give everybody great consideration.