Three children suffering from respiratory ailments passed away at two government hospitals in the city on Tuesday, officials of the state health department said.
The two hospitals — Calcutta Medical College and Hospital and Dr BC Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences — have witnessed deaths of several children suffering from viral infections since late on Saturday.
Among the children who died since Saturday, two were discharged after their condition had improved but had to be readmitted within days. Both had tested positive for the adenovirus.
The health department has yet to come out with a statement on the number of children with respiratory ailments who have died in the past few days.
A nine-month-old girl who passed away at the Dr BC Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences late on Saturday was admitted to the hospital for the second time in a month.
She had been cured and sent home the first time she was treated at the Kankurgachhi hospital. But she again fell ill and was admitted to the hospital on February 19. It was during the second admission that a viral panel test confirmed she had been infected by the adenovirus, said the official of the hospital.
A six-month-old boy who passed away at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital on Tuesday morning had been treated at another medical college in Kolkata and discharged after his condition apparently improved.
He was admitted to Calcutta Medical College on February 23, said an official of the hospital. “The boy had tested positive for adenovirus. He also had a congential heart disease,” the official said.
The second victim at Calcutta Medical College was a one-year-old child who was admitted on February 26 with respiratory distress.
“We have noticed that some children are falling sick again after being discharged from hospital. We have asked experts to look into this,” said Siddhartha Niyogi, director of West Bengal health services.
A doctor at the Dr BC Roy Institute told The Telegraph that the hospital was receiving a number of children suffering from respiratory ailments who had been discharged after an earlier phase of hospitalisation.
“Their condition had improved after being on oxygen support during the previous phase of hospitalisation. It could be that they contracted a fresh infection after returning home. This injured their lungs and led to their death,” said the doctor.
Another doctor at the hospital said the current spate of viral attacks was causing immune dysregulation, which disrupts the normal immune system and makes children vulnerable to reinfection.
“If an affected child is malnourished, the condition rapidly worsens,” a doctor said.
Mihir Sarkar, a professor of paediatric medicine at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, too, felt dysregulated immunity was the principal cause of readmission to hospital.
“The inflammatory process that is being triggered inside the body to kill live viruses is creating some problems. We call it dysregulated immunity. The initiation of the inflammatory process is helping the child recover from the initial infection but leading to some other problems,” said Sarkar.
Health department sources said many of the children with viral infections admitted to the Calcutta Medical College and Dr BC Roy Institute were suffering from malnourishment, which might have caused rapid deterioration of their condition.
