ROME. A two-year-old girl died in the night at the Bambino Gesù pediatric hospital in Rome where she had been transferred yesterday from Calabria due to the worsening of her health conditions due to Covid-19. The child, originally from the province of Crotone, had first passed from the hospital in Crotone to that of Catanzaro, but yesterday a C-130J of the Air Force had transferred her to Ciampino airport. The prefecture of Catanzaro had requested emergency air transport, followed by the order to take off from the Situation Room of the Air Squad Command to one of the Air Force crews. After coordinating with the “Italian Patient Evacuation Coordination Cell” (Itapecc) of the joint top operational command (Covi), which provides advice on the transportability of patients in this kind of missions,. During the night the further deterioration and the death of the little girl who had been judged in imminent danger of life due to severe respiratory failure. During the hospitalization at the “Pugliese Ciaccio” hospital in Catanzaro, the worsening of the clinical conditions occurred which made it necessary to immediately transfer him to the Infant Jesus of Rome.
Covid in the pediatric age
Similar tragedies have occurred in Turin and in other parts of Italy. The latest waves of the pandemic and lower vaccination coverage (only from mid-December children between 5 and 12 years old can be vaccinated in Italy) has increased the share of children hospitalized for complications related to Covid. There are factors that, except in the cases of children with serious illnesses or immunosuppressed, expose children more to the risk of developing severe forms of the virus. This makes it all the more necessary to proceed quickly with childhood vaccination coverage.
Infection
An in-depth American study has highlighted alarming characteristics of Covid among children. Obesity exposes not only adults, but also children and young people to the risk of suffering a severe form of Covid-19, confirms a study conducted by researchers from the American Ministry of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The research considered pediatric hospitalizations in six American hospitals between July and August for a total of 915 Covid cases. In 177 (19.3%), the infection was found incidentally in patients who had been hospitalized for other reasons, in the remaining 713 Covid-19 was the cause of hospitalization. 25 patients had developed MIS-C, the multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which can be a serious complication of Covid. The data show that more than two thirds of children and young people hospitalized for Covid already had a previous health problem and obesity was the most frequent: 32.4% of hospitalized patients were affected, but the percentage reached 61.4% in the age group between 12 and 17 years.
Incidence
Compared to normal weight patients, obese boys required higher levels of care, a sign of a more severe form of the disease, and stayed longer in hospital. About one sixth of the patients (15.8%) at the time of admission had, in addition to Covid, another viral infection, in 66.4% of cases it was respiratory syncytial virus. This percentage reached 33.9% in children under the age of 5. The research also showed that less than 1% of children eligible for vaccination had completed the vaccination course.