QCOSTARICA – A three-month-old baby and a four-year-old died in the first days of August from causes related to covid-19.
The deaths were registered at the National Children’s Hospital in San José. (Alejandro Gamboa Madrigal)
The information was confirmed by the medical director of the Hospital Nacional de Niños (National Children’s Hospital) in San José, Olga Arguedas Arguedas.
The baby, she said, died on August 3: “He had a predisposing medical condition. He had been infected with covid a few days ago and was out of the quarantine period, but passed away on August 3. It is considered a death associated with covid ”.
The second death is of a child under 4 years old, whose death was on August 4.
“He also had a predisposing medical condition. His death is directly attributable to covid-19,” the doctor reported.
The two deaths bring the total to eight lives of minors that covid-19 has claimed in Costa Rica. Five of the deaths occurred in this second year of the pandemic.
Since the beginning of June, the hospital warned of an increase in cases of this respiratory disease attributed, among other causes, to a greater relaxation by families of prevention measures, such as hand washing, maintaining social bubbles and physical distancing.
The pediatric hospital has also registered several cases of the so-called Children’s Multisystemic Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C), a rare but serious condition associated with COVID-19 in which different body parts become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs, during these pandemic months.
MIS-C is multisystemic because it affects several body systems at the same time: the circulatory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and respiratory.
Last week, Arguedas also drew attention to the effects of the so-called “killer virus” or Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection (RSV), which at that time had 10 children in intensive care and which, in the opinion of doctors, could cause more impact on hospital services than the pandemic.
