By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-10-30 00:56:24 | Updated at 2024-10-30 03:25:42
2 hours ago
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.
