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COVID-19 and Good Health and Well-being (SDG3)
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COVID-19 pandemic will likely to affect child health. It is predicted, worldwide 42–66 million more children will live in extreme poverty. Food insecurity and prevalence of under nutrition will be increased due to pandemic. Additionally, interruptions in routine health care has taken significant toll on child health as there is limited access to antenatal care, neonatal care and immunization for vaccine preventable diseases. Moreover, mathematical models predicted more than 500,000 excess deaths, with a 104% increase in new paediatric HIV infections due to short term interruptions in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission programs. Other models have estimated, across the globe an additional 6.3 million tuberculosis (TB) cases and 1.3 million TB-related deaths between 2020 and 2025 in all ages due to COVID -19 and limited access to the health services.
Most importantly, food insecurity, interruption in education, disruption of child care facilities can impact the mental health of children and also stress and distress caused by the pandemic put the children at the risk of violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect.
COVID-19 has shown that our world is interconnected and it is imperative to prioritize the well -being of all children. These challenges call for health system strengthening and equitable response which could improve the child health.
What could be the long term impact and solution to limit the impact of COVID-19 on child health?
Interesting read: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8112470/#CR8
This topic was modified 3 years ago by ashishjoshi
Covid-19 has created longterm impacts on childrens mental health. Quarantine, confinement, lack of activities, hence creating a drastic change in their lives, taking a huge toll from happy lifestyle to unhappy lifestyle , adjusting to new normal. these things have manifest the serious anxiety , and depression leading to extreme behavioral problem and eating disorders.
Posted : July 13, 2021 9:29 am
Children are not the face of this pandemic, but they are among its biggest victims. With over a year of lockdowns, empty classrooms, disrupted services, losses to family livelihoods, children’s lives have changed in profound ways. All children, of all ages, are affected, but for the most vulnerable the pandemic and its socio-economic consequences have exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities and adversity. Without additional investment in measures to restore access to vital services in protection, education and health, the pandemic can have a lifelong impact on children.
A survey of paediatricians showed a decrease of workload during COVID-19 predominantly due to the fear of parents and children to contract COVID-19 while visiting medical practices. This led to a significant reduction of health services delivery to children in the areas of diagnostics, treatment of chronic illnesses, primary healthcare and mental health.
The impact of movement restrictions, quarantines, switching to distance learning and reduced socialization has negatively affected children’s mental wellbeing. Teachers - 25 per cent in secondary schools and 18 per cent in primary schools - noticed increased anxiety and stress among pupils with the switch to remote learning.
EFFORTS to restore access to services to reduce the risk of children being among the biggest victims of the pandemic:
First, reopening schools must be a priority. Schools not only provide space for learning; they also provide delivery platform for essential protection and mental health services. With COVID-19 vaccines available, additional efforts are needed to ensure teachers and school staff receive the vaccine, so they are protected from the virus and able to hold in person classes. The situation also calls for increasing investment to build schools capacities to respond to mental health, and ensure schools are resilient to future disruptions by further strengthening systems to deliver remote learning and reducing the digital divide especially for the most vulnerable, including for children with disabilities.
Second, the situation also calls for efforts to fully restore social protection, including violence prevention services. Ensuring that social workers receive the COVID-19 vaccine, will enable them to conduct needed community outreach and restore full access to prevention services.
Third, to overcome the risks associated with postponing necessary health checks of children, there is a need to introduce additional measures to increase public confidence and demand for services including support for mental health; as well as investment in building capacities for tele-health services to introduce efficiencies and ensure the health system is resilient to future disruptions.
Fourth, to address the underutilization of cash benefits, additional efforts to improve outreach, information and support to complete the application process is needed to ensure all eligible families benefit from the assistance.
Fifth, psychosocial support must remain available, affordable and accessible. This includes building the capacities of professional support staff within schools and focusing them on provision of guidance and counselling to pupils and parents experiencing emotional and mental health difficulties.
//www.unicef.org/india/impact-covid-19-childrens-mental-health
This post was modified 3 years ago 2 times by Sai Darpan
Posted : July 19, 2021 3:06 pm
Children appear to be largely spared from the direct mortality impacts of COVID-19, the indirect effects resulting day to day from strained health systems and disruptions to life-saving health services such as immunization and antenatal care, can result in devastating increase in child deaths.The pandemic threatens to reverse decades of progress made around the world towards eliminating the preventable child deaths. COVID-19 is also likely to increase the number of stillbirths. Many still births occur everyday, as women are less likely or able to access health services, but even before the pandemic hit, very few women were receiving the necessary care to prevent stillbirths.
This loss of life can often be prevented with quality antenatal and delivery care and proper health facilities/services.
Posted : July 21, 2021 1:08 am
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