Why are healthy Hong Kong infants still at risk of severe Covid infections?
Health authorities earlier urged public to get vaccinated after infant girl sent to paediatric intensive care unit with Covid infection
Young children with good past health can still develop severe cases of Covid-19 due to having weaker immune systems than most adults, medical experts have warned, as a coronavirus infection left an infant girl in a serious condition.
The experts on Tuesday also urged parents to get their children vaccinated against the virus.
The Hospital Authority said the 10-month-old girl’s condition had improved from critical to serious, after health officials a day earlier revealed she had a Covid-19 infection that had been complicated by croup.
The girl was still being treated at the paediatric intensive care unit in Kwong Wah Hospital, the authority added.
Dr Mike Kwan Yat-wah, an honorary clinical associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s department of paediatrics and adolescent medicine, said on Tuesday: “Young children’s immune systems have not yet matured like adults. When they are exposed to a virus that is new to them, their immune system might not be able to cope with it.”
Dr Patrick Ip Pak-keung of the same department said that healthy children lacked strong enough immunity levels to fend off the virus when they first came into contact with it.
