The coronavirus has killed an estimated 1300 babies in Brazil since the start of the pandemic, although there is overwhelming evidence that Covid-19 rarely kills young children.
Although data from the Ministry of Health indicate that more than 800 children under the age of 9 died from Covid-19, including about 500 babies, experts say the actual death toll is higher because the cases are underreported due to a lack of widespread coronavirus testing, according to the BBC, which first reported the story.
Dr Fatima Marinho of the University of São Paolo, a leading epidemiologist who is a senior adviser to the international non-governmental organization Vital Strategies, estimated that the virus killed 2,060 children under the age of 9, including 1,302 babies. Her estimate is based on the number of excess deaths due to an unspecified acute respiratory syndrome during the pandemic.
There is a misconception that children have no risk for Covid-19, Marinho told the BBC after finding that there have been ten times more deaths in the past year due to an unexplained respiratory syndrome.
Marinho added that during her research, she saw an increase in cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome among Brazilian children. The rare syndrome is a newly identified and serious health condition associated with the virus that causes Covid-19 infections. It tends to affect children up to six weeks after being infected with the coronavirus.
Brazil has become the country with the second highest number of deaths in Covid-19, more than 361,000 since the pandemic, the most in the world after the United States.
Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders in English, said on Thursday that the government’s ‘failed response’ to the pandemic had led to thousands of avoidable deaths.
“More than one year after the Covid-19 pandemic, the failed response in Brazil caused a humanitarian disaster,” said Dr. Christos Christou, president of Doctors Without Borders, said in a briefing with reporters. “Every week there is a bad record of deaths and infections – the hospitals are overflowing, and yet there is still no coordinated central response.”
Last week, more than a quarter of the coronavirus’s worldwide deaths were in Brazil. Christou said he expects the situation to worsen in the coming weeks if nothing changes.
So far, right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who is opposed to a standstill, has held big events where he often does not wear a mask. He recently accepted vaccines as a possible solution.
Experts in Brazil say low coronavirus tests, lack of contact detection and a shortage of vaccines have contributed to an increase in the number of cases and deaths. These factors also increased the risk of exposure and potential death among Brazilian babies and children, among others.
“Their refusal to adapt evidence-based social health measures has sent far too many to an early grave. The response in Brazil needs an urgent, scientific and well-coordinated recovery to further avoidable deaths and the destruction of the once coveted Brazilian health care system, “Christou said in a statement on Thursday.
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Reuters contributed.