3 Infants Below 1 Year Of Age Among 97 Covid Fatalities In Delhi In 4 days

Sunil Kumar (name changed) and his wife can't stop grieving the loss of their one-month-old girl to Covid.

The baby is among 97 people who lost the battle to Coronavirus in the last four days. Of them, seven were aged below 18, including three who had not even turned a year old.

One of the babies was aged three months and the other seven months.

"We don't know how our little one contracted the infection. Neither I nor my wife had Covid," Mr Kumar told PTI over the phone.

The names of the parents have been changed to protect the privacy of the families.

Mr Kumar is a resident of Wazirabad and had taken his daughter to Sant Parmanand Hospital for a check-up where she tested positive on January 7 and was admitted to the LNJP Hospital the next day. She died on January 9.

"When she was born, doctors had told us that dirty water had gone inside her mouth. There was also pus and bleeding in her umbilical area but that was cured. The doctors told us that her immunity was low which is why she got COVID-19," he said.

Mr Kumar said that she was their firstborn.

"My wife is inconsolable. Maybe it was not in our baby's fate to live long," he said with a heavy voice.

The seven-month-old boy was suffering from Thalassemia and was admitted to Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya on January 6 since he was unwell.

On January 7, his father got himself tested after the hospital authorities told him that he couldn't enter the facility without a Covid negative report.  "I tested positive on January 7. The same day my son also came out positive. I am an e-rickshaw driver and I would get myself tested every fortnight for the infection," the man said.

His son was born during the second wave of Coronavirus when the national capital was under a lockdown, recalled his father. According to the hospital diagnosis, the little one had Covid with severe anemia along with congestive heart failure and bilateral pneumonia. He died on January 11.

The parents of the three-month-old boy had gone to GB Pant Hospital for his check-up on January 7 but decided to first go to LNJP since he was breathing fast.

The little one was suffering from an atrial septal defect or in simple terms, had a hole in the heart. "Friday is the OPD day in GB Pant Hospital and we brought him. But since he was breathing fast, first we went to LNJP where he was seen by a pediatrician. We were given a list of infections and asked to return after consulting the doctor at GB Pant," his father, who works in a restaurant, said.

At the GB Pant hospital, they were supposed to get a date for his operation but the doctor said that surgeries were not being conducted due to Coronavirus.

"We requested the doctor to consider our case and he asked us to return on January 11 with the cardiac echo report," he said.

Thereafter, the family went to LNJP, where he was tested for Coronavirus, but his report came negative.

"He was admitted and on January 10, we were told at 7 pm that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and his condition is critical. Within a couple of hours, he was no more," recalled his father. He alleged that his son was not given proper treatment and was not tended to properly.

"My wife told them that he has a fever on January 10 morning and they didn't give him any medication. I haven't even seen his Covid report. How can I believe he had tested positive?" he said.

Delhi reported 40 fatalities on January 12 and 23 on January 11 and 17 each on January 9 and January 10.

Of the 97 patients who succumbed to infection, 70 were unvaccinated, while 19 had taken the first jab and eight were fully vaccinated. Among those who died, seven were below 18, 37 in the 41-60 age group, 18 aged between 19 to 40, and 27 between 61 to 80. Eight of them were aged above 80.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)