CHIETI – Not only is the increase in cases recorded among adults, Covid is also striking at a young age. A 21-day-old newborn was admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Chieti hospital for Covid yesterday morning. The baby had difficulty breathing due to inflammation of the upper airways, was dehydrated and had no appetite and tested positive for the swab; the infection most likely occurred through the mother, who had contracted the virus in recent days and has now tested negative again. The child’s conditions, according to what was announced by the health authority, do not cause particular concern, also because he has already responded well to the first therapies he was subjected to and it was not necessary to help him with respiratory support. He was placed in isolation, while still allowing the mother to enter the ward for breastfeeding, adequately protected. He will remain in the hospital until he tests negative for the swab. “In these days of scorching heat – is the appeal of Diego Gazzolo, director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – I recommend that mothers do not ignore any symptoms reported by children, easily attributable to high temperatures. It is always preferable to take a test, to be on the safe side, because Covid contagion is back in the news”. The department directed by Dr. Gazzolo has already dealt with cases of Covid contagion in very young children. In January 2022, two twins of just 27 days, positive for Covid 19 with respiratory symptoms, had been hospitalized in isolation: residents in the province of Chieti, they had arrived at the “SS. Annunziata” because the mother was experiencing a condition of marked malaise and, worried, went to the Emergency Room, where the children had tested positive for contagion, which probably occurred in the family also in that circumstance since the father was also positive for the virus. Two months later, in March, the Omicron 2 variant struck a newborn and that was the first case in Abruzzo. A one-month-old baby was hospitalized in Chieti, in the operational unit directed by Gazzolo and subjected to the necessary tests and treatments, coming from the Emergency Room of the “San Pio” in Vasto, where he had arrived with a high fever and then tested positive. The tracing activity carried out revealed that his mother and little sister were also infected. The little boy, who had neither a cough nor breathing difficulties, underwent transfusion therapy, due to an anemic condition.
THE CONTEXT
In Abruzzo, from 1 to 7 August, 476 cases of Covid were confirmed, with 7 hospitalizations in the medical area and one in intensive care.
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