Health Board: Babies contracting coronavirus often do so from mother
Several babies have contracted coronavirus since the pandemic began, primarily picking up the virus from their mothers, with several of them being hospitalized.
Daily Postimees reports that 12 infants under the age of 12 months have contracted COVID-19 to date in Estonia since the pandemic began, with one of them being a new-born.
Jevgenia Epstein, chief specialist at the Health Board's (Terviseamet) department of communicable disease monitoring and epidemic control said that it was not known precisely how seriously infants and children suffered with the virus, thouhg in five cases the infant was hospitalized, and diagnosed with COVID-19 upon arrival.
She said: "On average, the children were in the hospital for one to three days," adding they had usually contrated it from within the family, often catching it from their mother.
Media adviser at the West Tallinn Central Hospital (LTHKH) said: "As both children and adults are treated at the infection clinic of West Tallinn Central Hospital, infants with various infectious diseases also come to our hospital, and COVID-19 is no exception to that."
The age range of those treated for or with COVID-19 runs the entire age spectrum, she added, from infants through to 100 years of age in one case.
Tartu University Hospital said that no babies born at its maternity ward had contracted the virus to date.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
