More Hong Kong children sent to hospital with Covid-related croup, paediatricians warn, as John Lee urges parents to vaccinate
- Dr Mike Kwan says number of children sent to hospital with croup, characterised by an obstruction of airway caused by viral infections, has reached almost one per day
- Chief Executive John Lee joins calls for parents to get their children vaccinated
More children in Hong Kong are being admitted to hospital after developing croup as a result of contracting Covid-19, veteran paediatricians have warned, as the city’s leader urged parents to vaccinate youngsters against the disease without delay.
The government on Wednesday also revealed that two-dose vaccination coverage for those aged three years and above had finally reached 90 per cent, but the inoculation rate for children under that age stood at just 3 per cent.
Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu urged parents to book jabs for their children after visiting a 27-month-old boy who was critically ill from Covid-19 and exhibiting symptoms of croup, which is characterised by an obstruction of the airway caused by viral infection.
“Parents shouldn’t wait, it’s too late for regrets when their children get infected,” Lee said in a Facebook post.
Health authorities reported 5,757 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, the most since 5,823 were logged on April 1, with 194 of the latest cases imported. There were four more deaths related to the virus.
Dr Mike Kwan Yat-wah, a consultant at Princess Margaret Hospital’s paediatric infectious disease unit, told the Post the number of children sent to hospital with the condition had grown from as many as two on a seasonal basis to almost one per day.
“In the past, we may admit one or two croup patients in the winter season. But now, we receive almost one croup patient every day or every other day,” he said.
Dr Patrick Ip Pak-keung, a clinical associate professor in paediatrics and adolescent medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), said such patients were last seen at the height of the recent fifth wave.
“We didn’t see croup patients in our first four coronavirus waves as the infection numbers were lower, and fortunately [we] never had a death from croup,” Ip said. “But croup could be life-threatening to young children, and we are certainly seeing many children whose conditions deteriorated rapidly after developing croup.”
Ip said the swelling of the upper airway, already narrow for toddlers, could result in long-term brain damage if their oxygen supply was blocked. In some cases, steroids had to be administered to relieve the swelling, and intubation was required to boost oxygen flow to the organs.
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Health officials also sounded the alarm over a growing number of infections among the elderly, which accounted for 80 per cent of all Covid-19 cases in hospitals and about a quarter of all daily infections, up from 18 per cent.
Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau warned that hospitals could be forced to reduce non-emergency health services by as much as a quarter due to the increase in cases, a situation he admitted was “not ideal”. Residents referred to private hospitals should carry on with appointments at such facilities, he said.
Kwan added that 19 per cent of the 288 child patients at Princess Margaret Hospital who had recovered from the virus had developed “long Covid”, which is defined as the presence of at least one persistent symptom for four weeks or more after recovery.
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The consulting doctor said 5 per cent of the children at the hospital with long Covid displayed three or more symptoms associated with the condition, such as memory loss, cognitive function impairment, difficulty sleeping, eczema and loss of hair.
One young patient had also experienced temporary loss of sight, with instances lasting for 10 to 30 seconds, he said.
Kwan said a multidisciplinary approach was required to address long Covid, noting that the child whose sight was affected was being referred for treatments by eye and brain specialists, in addition to undergoing an MRI scan.
“We believe Omicron really causes some nervous system symptoms, for example, acute brain inflammation,” he said.
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The veteran paediatrician also joined health officials in repeating calls for parents to inoculate their children against the coronavirus as soon as possible.
Professor Lau Yu-lung, a government pandemic adviser and chair of the HKU’s paediatrics department, advised parents to watch for respiratory symptoms in their children such as croup, which is characterised by a hoarse voice or difficulty in breathing, and take them to hospital as soon as possible if they suspected anything was wrong.
Earlier this month, a 22-month-old girl became the second child in the city to die after contracting Covid-19. Authorities subsequently reduced the age threshold for inoculation to six months. Youngsters can receive the Chinese-made Sinovac shot, and the government is negotiating with German jab manufacturer BioNTech to procure its child-friendly vaccine dosage.
The city’s Covid-19 tally stands at 1,432,837 cases, with 9,584 related fatalities.
