Children Vulnerable to Covid-19 While Traveling

KOMPAS/P RADITYA MAHENDRA YASA

Teachers and parents take their children on a tour to visit the Ronggowarsito Museum in Semarang City, Central Java, Wednesday (15/4/2022). Children are one of the most vulnerable groups for contracting COVID-19. It takes an active role of parents to educate as well as supervise their children when playing outside the house.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Amid the resurgence in Covid-19 cases, children are more vulnerable to infection, especially those traveling with their family on vacation. Although the majority of infected children have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic, some have experienced severe inflammatory syndrome, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), which can affect various organs, so prevention is priority.

Retno Asti Werdhani, who heads the Community Empowerment Team of the National Covid-19 Task Force, told an online discussion on Wednesday (29/6/2022) in Jakarta that the public should pay more attention to their children during the holiday season. In addition to the increased risk of Covid-19 infection amid the emergence of new cases, children were also vulnerable to being exposed to other infectious diseases.

“Children are more susceptible to infectious diseases because their immune response is not as good as adults’. Moreover, children under five still cannot get a Covid-19 vaccine," said Retno, who is also the head of public medicine at the University of Indonesia Medical School (FKUI).

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According to Retno, the children usually became sick from being infected by other people. Therefore, the adults around them must be healthy to avoid spreading disease to children.

"For protection, those aged six years and above should immediately get a Covid-19 vaccine before traveling. However, children who cannot be vaccinated because of chronic diseases that can make them react to vaccines must first consult a doctor before traveling. Their [adult] companions must protect themselves by getting a Covid-19 booster jab," she said.

KOMPAS/PRIYOMBODO

Children play on the riverbank in the Tanah Abang area, Central Jakarta, Friday (6/24/2022).

MIS-C

Yogi Prawira, who heads the Covid-19 Task Force of the Indonesian Pediatric Society (IDAI), said that in the last two weeks, the number of pediatric Covid-19 cases in both regular hospital wards and intensive care units (ICU) had begun to increase.

“People often assume that if a child has Covid-19, the symptoms will be mild. However, it turns out that there is also an increase in the number of those with MIS-C, namely severe inflammation in various organs after Covid-19," said Yogi.

In general, children with Covid-19 developed severe disease if they had comorbidities, but those with MIS-C were healthy before getting Covid-19, he added. "A few months after these children recovered from Covid-19, they developed severe inflammation. So, the danger of Covid-19 in children is not only during infection, but also after," he said.

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According to Yogi, Covid-19 was a systemic disease, meaning that it did not attack just the respiratory system. “There are children who have dominant [Covid-19 symptoms] in the digestive system, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. No colds or fever at all. In general, around 70 percent of children experience mild symptoms, some even no symptoms," he said.

Since the detection of MIS-C cases, children who have Covid-19 should be monitored for two to eight weeks after they recovered from the disease. "The symptoms are high fever, gastrointestinal disorders, redness of the skin and eyes, redness of the tongue, and lethargy," said Yogi.

In addition to the risk of MIS-C, children can also experience long Covid, with symptoms persisting for around 12 weeks.

“A study indicates that the figure is around 10 percent,” said Yogi.

This article was translated by Hendarsyah Tarmizi.