QCOSTARICA – An eight-year-old boy who had no risk factors died abruptly, just six hours after the minor entered a medical center, on September 20, due to covid-19.
Olga Arguedas, director of the Hospital Nacional de Niños (National Children’s Hospital) in San Jose, where the patient was treated, confirmed that he was a minor “previously known healthy”, that is, without any underlying disease or risk factors.
“He was received in a very delicate condition, we are very sorry for this loss,” said the doctor.
With this, there have already been 13 deaths of children from covid-19 so far in 2021 and two other cases that are under investigation. Throughout the entire pandemic, there are 20 deaths under 18 years of age.
As of this Friday, September 24, there were 18 children in intensive care for covid-19.
Infections and hospitalizations for the disease in minors have increased gradually, but steadily, a situation that had not been seen previously in the pandemic.
“During the entire pandemic, the proportion of pediatric cases was 8%. For a couple of weeks it has already been above 9%,” Arguedas said.
Arguedas added that the vast majority of minors who require admission to hospital have risk factors that already made them more vulnerable. “In covid-19 practically 100% of those who are hospitalized have predisposing diseases,” said Arguedas.
However, to date, there have been exceptions, one is the case of this eight-year-old boy and in August that of a one-year-eight-month-old girl. Neither had risk factors that predisposed them to worsen.
The authorities of the medical center are not the only ones who warn of the increase in infections in minors. The Universidad Hispanoamericana (UH) also did so last month in the report A Pandemic in Perspective.
“As time goes by, the use of ICU cases increase. Instead of seeing isolated peaks of increase, we see how, since March 2021, the cases of minors hospitalized with covid-19 in this center have been increasing slowly and steadily,” the document cites.
