Previously completely healthy 15-year-old hospitalized with Covid: He has severe pneumonia

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A 15-year-old boy infected with coronavirus was admitted to the Institute for Mother and Child with severe pneumonia about a week ago.

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"We've opened the Covid ward at the Institute for Mother and Child. It is a small part of the clinic, it functions as it did during the previous waves. We quickly reactivated the capacities, the equipment, the people and the organization. Currently, two children are hospitalized, before that there were seven more children who were discharged without major problems and without a more severe form of the disease. About seven days ago, a 15-year-old boy with severe pneumonia was admitted. He has a normal body mass index, he had to receive antiviral drugs. The population of completely healthy children without any comorbidities is not protected either, and that is what worries us," Vladislav Vukomanovic, a pediatric cardiologist from the Institute, told RTS.

He added that it is possible that the beginning of school will bring a new wave of infected people.

"Each infected person who is registered through a PCR test leaves behind the possibility of at least two to three times more infected people, especially with the Delta strain, which is more transmissible. The start of the school year does not promise that there will be a reduction in the number of sick children. An increase in the number of infected children should be counted on. Whether that will lead to some measures to be changed or new ones to be introduced remains to be seen, but it's very likely that it will happen," he added.

According to current statistics, about five percent of children up to the age of 10 get coronavirus, as well as 12.8 percent of those in the 10 to 20 age group.

"This shows that those who have not been vaccinated get sick, and that is now the population of children who are unvaccinated. Vaccination of children from 12 to 18 years of age is slow, but the procedure of vaccination of children at that age should be respected and accelerated. They are certainly the biggest target for infection and manifestation of the disease so far, and it is not known how they will manifest it. They can be asymptomatic, but they can also have pneumonia, i.e. severe pneumonia, or they can develop the multisystem inflammatory syndrome, from which several hundred children have died so far," Vukomanovic concluded.

(Telegraf.rs)