202 Kids Died Of COVID-19 Over 1 Month In The Philippines

More than 200 children from the Central Visayas region in the Philippines have died of COVID-19 over the past month alone as infections among the younger population continue to rise.

Throughout January 2022, health officials in Central Visayas recorded a total of 202 COVID-19 deaths among children between the ages of 0 and 11. It is unclear whether any of the children had pre-existing medical conditions.

The number of child deaths in January marked a 14.8% increase from the number of children who died of COVID-19 in December. Throughout the last month of 2021, only 30 minors died of the virus.

Philippine health officials are now urging parents to get their children vaccinated against the virus, noting that the vaccines help protect people from severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths.

“If these numbers are not enough to encourage us to have our children vaccinated, I do not know what,” Department of Health Central Visayas Chief Pathologist Mary Jean Loreche said in a press conference.

The latest COVID-19 data comes as the Philippines rolls out vaccines made by drugmakers Pfizer-BioNTech for children aged 5 to 11. The rollout has begun in the National Capital Region, Central Luzon and Calabarzon.

In the Central Visayas region, at least 4,433 minors with comorbidities have received their COVID-19 vaccine shot and at least 354,620 have been fully vaccinated against the virus.

The Department of Health is encouraging vaccination among the younger population, noting that kids aged 11 and younger made up 69.2% of all COVID-19 cases reported among children in January 2022.

“The contribution of children 0 to 11 years old in the total pediatric cases is higher during the Omicron wave compared to Delta. Cases among the 0-11 age group comprised an average of 56% of the total pediatric cases in September and this climbed up to 69.2% in January,” the Department of Health said.

The recent surge of pediatric COVID-19 cases is believed to have been caused by the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant. The strain is also attributed to the increase of infections among people aged 0 to 59.