The Odisha government has set up a committee to manage COVID-19 among children in the wake of the possibility of the increased number of cases among them, officials said on Monday. The committee has been asked to formulate standard operating procedures (SOPs) for managing COVID-19 among the paediatric population and submit a report to the government at the earliest, they said.
It will suggest preparedness measures, including augmentation, training of human resources to deal with the COVID-affected children and formulate SOPs, they said. Chief of Directorate of Medical Education and Training (DMET) CBK Mohanty has been appointed as the chairman of the seven-member committee, while Director of Family Welfare Bijay Panigrahi will act as member convener.
The committee was formed after many children tested positive for COVID-19 during the raging second wave, and health experts predicted that more children might be affected in the possible third wave of the pandemic, officials said.
Recently, the state government issued an advisory, asking parents to ensure that children older than two years wear face masks while stepping out of their homes. Though schools, colleges and Anganwadi centres are closed, experts fear that children might get infected by elders in their families. Till Sunday, 30,523 children younger than 14 years were infected in the state, an official said.
Meanwhile, the Health and Family Welfare Department named Dr Srinath Reddy as the chairman of a 12-member advisory committee that will guide the state government in vaccination programmes and strategies to deal with possible future waves of the pandemic. CBK Mohanty of DMET was named its convenor.
