NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Dr Rekha Rapaka, an infectious disease specialist in Baltimore, Maryland, said while children largely experience milder symptoms of the coronavirus when infected, they are spreaders of the virus and are at risk of multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
“With regard to children being spreaders, they definitely are spreaders,” she said during a virtual panel discussion on “Understanding COVID-19 Vaccines: What it is and what Bahamians can expect“ hosted by BAAWMAR (Bahamian American Association of the Washington, DC & Mid-Atlantic Region).
“That’s one of the reasons why there has been a lot of concern about how we keep schools open and how we do schooling safely, and it’s because it’s thought that, you know, there is high rates of potential transmission between kids and kids bringing the virus home or infecting teachers, etc.
“So, that’s just something to know. And then, kids can get severe COVID-19.
“They can get the same disease seen in adults and they have died from it as well.
“In the US, we have had cases in the range of about, pretty low truly, but we’ve also had probably around 100 hospitalizations for severe COVID-19.
“And then, there is another syndrome associated in children that’s related to inflammation and sort of an autoimmune disease process, meaning the body gets the infection and instead of fighting the infection, it starts trying to fight the body a little bit and it’s called basically an inflammatory syndrome that affects children.
“So, they have this different manifestation and nobody understands why they get this or why we don’t see it across the age spectrum, so it’s really an unsolved mystery right now, and I would say it’s important as well to really understand these things as time goes on and it’s critically important to prevent this infection in kids even though they don’t get as sick typically.”
While early studies suggested the virus impacted low percentages of children in China and the US — ranging from two to six percent — the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week it does not know if new COVID-19 variants were causing more cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
That Bahamas has seen few cases of adolescents being infected with the virus, though health officials discontinued providing cases specifics such as age on new infections as the country underwent a surge of the virus last July, stretching the healthcare system and officials to capacity.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, only five children tested positive in the first wave of the virus, which saw 104 cases and spanned from mid-March 2020 to the end of June 2020.
As of October 2020, that figure rose to 161, with most of the children ranging in age between 10 and 19.
At least 37 children who contracted the virus were under the age of nine years old.
Last April, a nine-year-old was among those infections.
Last August, The Bahamas recorded its youngest case after a six-month-old was confirmed with COVID-19 after a healthcare worker who lived in the home tested positive for the virus a week before.
Meanwhile, the government announced last month it will not meet the February 1 target for the return of in-person learning at public schools in the capital and several other islands.
Minister of Education Jeffrey Lloyd said: “Unfortunately, we will not be able to return to in-person learning for the islands of New Providence, Abaco, Exuma and Eleuthera on the February 1 date that we had targeted because we are still in conversation, in discussion with the ministry of health and health officials.
“They have requested of us to outline every [specificality] which we have the protocols for, for a variety of circumstances.”
A number of private schools have returned to hybrid learning, including face-to-face.
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