Anybody can contract the COVID-19 disease. Elderly fall in the high-risk category. Presently, there is a trend of vertical transmission wherein if a mother gets infected, her child will also contract the infectionMataram, W Nusa Tenggara (ANTARA) - The Mataram City Public Hospital in West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia, is currently offering treatment to four children diagnosed with the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the hospital's director, Lalu Herman Mahaputra, confirmed, Tuesday.
The four children, including a toddler, are receiving treatment at the hospital's isolation wards. They are all in good health, Mahaputra stated.
"Anybody can contract the COVID-19 disease. Elderly fall in the high-risk category. Presently, there is a trend of vertical transmission wherein if a mother gets infected, her child will also contract the infection," he pointed out.
These young COVID-19 patients are identified by their initials as AZM, MB, MH, and RRA, he remarked, adding that AZM is a six-year-old girl, a resident of the Pejarakan Karya neighborhood of Ampenan Sub-district, who tested positive for coronavirus on May 1.
MB is a three-month-old toddler, who had contracted the infection on May 2. He is also a resident of the Pejarakan Karya neighborhood of Ampenan Sub-district, while MH is a four-year-old boy, who also resides in the same neighborhood. MH had tested positive for COVID-19 on May 3.
RRA is a nine-year-old boy, who resides in the Cakra Barat neighborhood area of Cakranegara Subdistrict. He had tested positive for this new coronavirus disease on May 4.
These COVID-19-infected children are receiving treatment similar to those offered to other patients, but the hospital authority has collaborated with the Children Protection Agency (LPA) in Mataram for handling a specific case of a mother getting infected, he noted.
"If a mother gets infected while her child does not, we send the him/her to the LPA to prevent him/her from contracting the virus. So far, we have sent two kids to the agency," he revealed.
According to the Mataram city administration's COVID-19 Task Force, as of Tuesday, the city had recorded 94 confirmed cases, of which 76 are still hospitalized, while 16 others have fully recovered from the virus, whereas two others died.
The task force is also handling 157 patients under monitoring status; 58 people under surveillance status; and 373 people not showing any symptom of COVID-19.
The coronavirus outbreak initially struck the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019 and then spread across the globe, including to countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The Indonesian government officially announced the country's first confirmed cases on March 2, 2020, and has declared the COVID-19 pandemic as a national disaster in Indonesia.
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