A study has revealed that coronavirus has resulted in the deaths of 159 children in Pakistan since March 2020 and the percentage of deaths among children is over 14 percent in the country, which is “unusually high” as compared to other parts of the world, according to a news outlet.
The study was conducted by researchers from Aga Khan University, Karachi’s National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and National Institute of Child Health, Lahore’s Children’s Hospital, and Rawalpindi’s Benazir Bhutto Hospital.
Researchers recruited over 1,100 children for the study, who had tested positive for the virus. Data was collected on newborns, infants, babies and adolescents up to 18 years old between March 2020 and December 2021.
The study found that children with underlying health conditions such as malnutrition, cancer or cardiovascular disease were at a higher risk of dying from Covid-19 with findings showing that one in five young patients with comorbidities, or 19.5 per cent, lost their lives.
Even children with sound health were at risk as one in eight such children in Pakistan died after contracting the virus.
Similar studies from western countries have found mortality rates in kids from Covid-19 to be under one percent.
Early findings from the study showed the main cause of death from Covid-19 was multi-system inflammatory syndrome, MIS-C. MIS-C typically occurs a few weeks after a child is infected with the virus. It causes vital organs such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs to become inflamed.
Respiratory ailments were another major cause of deadly complications from the virus. Further insights into all causes of death in the study and the most important factors that enabled children to survive are currently being compiled.
“While overall mortality from Covid-19 in children is low compared to adults, it is now clear that Covid-19 is not a benign disease in children. The virus is continuously evolving and the medical community should follow the updated treatment guidelines,” said AKU’s Dr Qalab Abbas, Dr Fyezah Jehan and Dr Shazia Mohsin, the study’s principal investigators in Pakistan.
