Parents told to be alert if kid’s fever persists for more than 3 to 4 days

kolkata: The State government issued an advisory for the parents to check their children from falling victim to acute respiratory infection (ARI). The newly published advisory stressed upon how home care management can be done for the sick children.

The advisory said that the parents should be alert if fever persists for more than 3 to 4 days. One should be cautious of children complaining about sore throat, cough, and if they feel tired without doing any work. Parents should also be alert if their children feel respiratory distress.

A child should be admitted to hospital if fever persists for more than 5 days or if breathing mechanism gets faster or loss of appetite happens in children. Parents are also advised to help their children wash their hands with soaps multiple times in a day. People should not touch children wearing outside dresses and without properly washing hands.

According to the latest state government figure, around 13,061 acute respiratory infection (ARI) cases in children had been admitted in the last two-and-a-half months. Only 19 deaths have been reported due to adenovirus infections so far in the state. Out of these, 13 children were having serious comorbidities like low birth weight- 3, pre-existing lung disease- 2, congenital heart disease- 3 , congenital metabolic disease- 2, muscular dystrophy -2, other serious Infection- 1.

The State government data suggested that new admissions in hospitals have come down from around 800 daily a week back to 600 per day now. “Government doctors have been oriented on the case management protocol. Separate paediatric ARI Clinics are continuing at every secondary and tertiary care hospital. 24x7 paediatric emergency services have been made available. A 24X7 helpline has been started (1800-313-444-222) and widely published for addressing queries/concerns of common people,” reads a press statement issued by the state government.

A high-level Task Force on ARI that had been formed under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary with many renowned experts as its members are holding meetings on a day to day basis to monitor the situation and take corrective actions. Community level monitoring and awareness generation are being done by the ASHA Workers. Sensitization by Anganwadi workers has been taken up. Advisory in Bengali has been prepared on primary screening of the young children and awareness of families for early identification of the respiratory infection.

According to the state government figure, there are more than 5000 beds in 121 hospitals in the state having facilities for management of pediatric acute respiratory infection (ARI) cases.

There are 1748 SNCU beds, 654 PICU beds, 223 NICU beds across the state. Out of 5000 beds, around 2950 beds are occupied and 2050 are vacant.