Apprehending the third Covid-19 wave by August, the state health department has decided to take special measures for the protection of child healthcare. According to the experts associated with the union ministry of health, children will be relatively more vulnerable to the virus infection during the impending third wave.

Bengal health department headed by the chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee has decided to organise training camps for doctors on how to prevent, control and manage infections among children and toddlers. The camps are scheduled to be held at state-run teaching hospitals like SSKM, NRS Medical College, Medical College Hospital which will focus on dialysis and critical care units (CCU) for children in different public sector healthcare units across the state that is already ravaged by the Covid19 second wave.

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The health department has already held several meetings with experts in child health, critical care, general medicine, virology and several other departments. Back in the end-June a 10- member expert committee was formed by the health department that had conducted a meeting at Swasthya Bhaban to discuss issues related to prevention and monitor the third wave in Bengal. The national experts like Dr Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) in Delhi have already warned saying, “the third wave of the Covid19 pandemic is expected to hit the country by August.”

The experts include Dr Gopalkrishna Dhali, Dr Moitrayee Banerjee, Dr Soumitra Ghosh, Dr Abhijit Chowdhury, Dr Asutosh Ghosh, Dr Mrinal Kanti Das, Dr Bibhuti Saha, Dr Jogiraj Roy, Dr Jyortirmoy Pal and Dr Dilip Pal. All are medical teachers attached with state-run teaching hospitals like SSKM, R G Kar, School of Tropical Medicine and BC Roy Memorial Hospital for Children. Experts fear that the third wave of the Covid-19 strains is more virulent and children may be comparatively endangered to this deadly virus than the first and ongoing second waves.

Anticipating a third wave state government has already directed all government-run hospitals and medical colleges in the city and districts to gear up by increasing the number of beds and bolstering infrastructure for child patients. KMC has decided to set up a 60-bed safe home for children at Harekrishna Sett Lane in the Sinthee area. Mothers will also be allowed to stay with their Covid-afflicted children at safe homes.