A pediatric infectious disease expert on Monday, Oct. 10, has observed an increase in Covid-19 cases among the younger population but stated that this is expected because there’s more circulation in the community.

In a press conference, Dr. Anna Ong-Lim shared that in the hospitals that she worked with, she saw an increase in the number of admissions as reflected by the overcapacity in the number of beds that they were allocating for COVID-19, particularly in the Philippine General Hospital (PGH).

She mentioned that many of these kids were unvaccinated either because they were younger than five years, or they had not yet opted to be vaccinated.

She added that the patient population that they serve in PGHi is typically composed of those who are vulnerable, have chronic illnesses, or are immunocompromised. So aside from the fact that they are in a younger age population, they also have these comorbidities that place them at risk for severe and critical disease.

Meanwhile, Dr. Althea de Guzman, a medical specialist at the Department of Health (DOH) Epidemiology Bureau, confirmed that there have been increases even in the prior spikes, and what they observed is that if Covid-19 cases increase, it goes with all the age groups.

What the data is showing, according to her, is that the contribution or the proportion of adolescents and children amongst all the cases has not actually changed.

“So parang hindi namang nagkakaroon ng predilection na mas bata na o mas matanda na ang nagkakasakit pare pareho pa rin ang kontribusyon (So it’s not like there is a predilection that those getting infected by Covid-19 are the younger population, the contribution remains the same),” she explained.

“We need to push for vaccination because we don’t want that trend to change. And we don’t want to see a higher proportion of children now becoming the ones being admitted just because they are not getting the vaccination that’s being provided naman or available to our population,” she added.

On the other hand, Ong-Lim data said that based on the data by the team of Dr. John Wong, among the pediatric population, there is a high rate of hospitalization and deaths in the most vulnerable population or those under the age of 1 year.

Aside from the consideration that those who are already qualified to get vaccinated should avail of it, he reminded that there also those who despite wanting to get inoculated, can’t have it yet since there is no vaccine available to them.

“So it’s our role as the people belonging to their households na pwede magqualify to be vaccinated na tayo ang proteksyon nila, dahil hindi na tayo maguuwi ng sakit sa bahay (So it’s our role as the people belonging to their households who are already qualified to get vaccinated to protect them, and not bring the virus back home),” she said.

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by Dhel Nazario

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