Children's COVID-19 Cases Increase, Ministry Of Health: It's Due To Their Parents' Behavior

Illustration (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - There has been an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases affecting children in Indonesia. Director of Prevention and Control of Direct Infectious Diseases of the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) Siti Nadia Tarmizi said the main cause was their parents.

Nadia said the majority of cases of coronavirus infection in children were transmitted from the will of their own parents. This can be seen from the number of children who are brought outside the home for activities.

"Actually, the source of COVID-19 transmission is increasing in children because of the behavior of parents who do not obey health protocols. We see that children are now being taken to malls, to their hometown/village and traveling, so the risk of exposure is great", Nadia told VOI, Wednesday, June 23.

Therefore, Nadia appealed to parents to continue to comply with health protocols and not to take their children out of the house if they do not have an urgent need.

"Stay with health protocols and don't bring children to public places", she said.

Previously, the Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI) increased the number of cases of COVID-19 in children along with the entry of the delta variant in Indonesia. IDAI revealed that at least 1 in 8 cases of COVID-19 were cases of children.

The comparison shows that children are a category that is also at risk of contracting COVID-19 along with people with comorbidities and the elderly.

Even Indonesia is ranked first in the highest death rate in the world for the category of children exposed to COVID-19 with a record case fatality rate of 3-5 percent according to IDAI.

Of the current total national positive cases of COVID-19, 12.5 percent were contributed by children aged 0 to 18 years. This shows that one in eight positive cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia is a child.

“These children are not just victims. They can also act as carriers (if exposed to COVID-19) for their parents and grandparents", said the Elected Chairperson of the Indonesian Doctors Association (PB IDI) Adib Khumaidi.

One of the provinces experiencing an increase in COVID-19 cases is DKI Jakarta. In the highest daily increase in new cases, which amounted to 5.582 cases on Sunday, June 20, as many as 665 cases were children aged 5 to 18 years. And 224 children under five years.

"That's approximately 12 percent (of the total daily cases on Sunday, June 20). So, 16 percent of the increase in cases are children", said DKI Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan.

Seeing this problem, Anies considers the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic to be different from last year. Where, various new virus variants have emerged, namely the Alpha variant from the UK, the Beta variant from South Africa, to the Delta variant from India.

"This means that we are facing a different epidemic situation from the beginning of last year. It is most likely a new variant that is easily transmitted, including to children", he said.