As of August 2021 The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 210 million Covid 19 cases and 4.5 million deaths. Thankfully global data to date shows that children appear to be largely spared from the direct effects of the Covid 10 infection. Most children experience clinically mild disease or remain asymptomatically infected [1,2].

The authorities have concentrated their efforts on delivering services to the adult population which accounts for the majority of patients in this COVID-19 outbreak. This pandemic, as well as the present efforts to reduce and manage it has resulted in job losses and financial hardships for families. They have caused havoc in the lives of youngsters. Many peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed research have revealed further unintended consequences for children and adolescents’ well being. This includes health-care service disruptions, the twin double burdens of undernutrition and obesity, lack of socialization and educational deprivation. The potential loss of educational possibilities accrued in learning for today’s youngful population poses a significant challenge to their human capital development. This might be even more serious with inequitable educational opportunities coming from distance learning platforms being out of reach for the majority of children [3].

References

1. Ministry of Health Malaysia (2021).
2. Mayo Clinic Org: COVID-19 (coronavirus) in babies and children (2021).
3. Patrick SW., et al. “Well-being of Parents and Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A National Survey”. Pediatrics 4 (2020).
4. Nazish Imran., et al. “Psychological burden of quarantine in children and adolescents: A rapid systematic review and proposed solutions”. Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences5 (2020): 1106-1111.
5. G Segre., et al. “Interviewing children: the impact of the COVID-19 quarantine on children’s perceived psychological distress and changes in routine”. BMC Pediatrics 21 (2021): 231.
6. Dylan Graetz., et al. “Global effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on pediatric cancer: a cross-sectional study”. The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health5 (2021): 332-340.
7. “Editorial: Mental health of children and young people during pandemic”. BMJ (2021):372.
8. Chua SN and Rao MV. “Youth suicide in Malaysia”. Relate Mental Health Malaysia (2021).
9. Stephanie L Mayne., et al. “COVID-19 and Adolescent Depression and Suicide Risk”.

Citation

Citation: Abdul Halim Abdul Jalil. “Hidden Pediatric Effects of Covid-19 Pandemic". Acta Scientific Paediatrics 4.12 (2021): 01-02.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Abdul Halim Abdul Jalil. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.