10 Kids Diagnosed With COVID Hospitalised In Odisha’s Balasore

Balasore: Ten children have tested positive for COVID-19 at Balasore district headquarters hospital (DHH), CDMO Dulalsen Jagdev informed on Thursday.

“It seems most of the infants contracted the infection from their mothers,” Jagdev added.

According to sources, four among them are newborns (under 28 days) and they are under observation at the Sick Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) of the hospital, while three are in the age group of one to one and a half years and the remaining three in 2-10 age group. Two infants among the 12 have been referred to Cuttack.

The CDMO, however, said it is too early to attribute these cases to the third wave.

“We are creating special facilities for the treatment of infected children. A provision of 40 beds including five in neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and 5 beds in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is being made here,” Jagdev added.

Notably, 130 in the age group of 0-18 years, were infected in the last 24 hours in Odisha. It is 15.31 per cent of the new cases. The infection rate among children and adolescents was 14.7 per cent on Wednesday.

As many as 1390 in the 0-18 age group have tested positive for COVID since August 15, when the government started mapping the paediatric population in the state, while 33 have died due to the deadly disease during this period.