Children do get COVID-19, contradictory to popular assumptions, although they usually show only mild symptoms, NITI Aayog member – health Dr VK Paul said today. The attempt on the part of the government now is to ensure that minors do not become part of the chain through which the disease spreads, he said.
The second wave of the pandemic, in which number of children affected have seen a rise, has alerted the country’s health experts to stress on ways to handle children, with pre-existing co-morbidities, who have been infected with the deadly virus, ANI had reported earlier.
“The matter of children is more important…They do get Covid. But the symptoms are minimal. They are largely asymptomatic,” Dr Paul told reporters today.
Earlier, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights wrote to the Union Health Ministry and Indian Council of Medical Research alerting that a third COVID-19 wave may affect children in large number as suggested by health experts.
“The pandemic is stabilising in a major part of the country. The positivity rate is going down and the number of active cases is going down,” the NITI Aayog member said, repeating the message he gave out a week before.
