A Pediatrician with Healthy Kids Foundation, Dr Gloria Amponsah-Kodua has indicated that children between ages of six months to five years can easily get febrile convulsion or seizures through fever or very fast rise in body temperature.
She also stated on the ‘My Health Segment’ of 3FM’s Sunrise Morning Show that there has been an increase in cases of diarrhea, malaria and cold among school children but cholera has not been confirmed yet.
“We’ve had diarrhea, we’ve had fever, we’ve had cold and malaria cases going up due to the raining season but cholera has not been confirmed yet” she stated.
The pediatrician has emphasized the need for parents whose child has fever from malaria, diarrhea, flu, or whatever to give Paracetamol as first aid to help bring the child’s temperature down unless the child has been declared allergic to Paracetamol by the doctor. “Alternatively, the parents or guardian can dip a clean towel into look-warm water and clean the child’s face, stomach and body to cool his or her temperature”
“For diarrhea, you can give ORS when the child passes watery stool to replace the body fluid that the child is losing and as soon as possible send that child to the hospital”. Dr. Gloria however cautioned parents to adhere to the prescribed dosage
Gloria Amponsah-Kodua cautions that diseases spread fast among children because they share a lot of things in school such as; pencils, erasers, sharpener and play toys while they do a lot of body contact when playing and it is usually difficult to keep them apart. Therefore it is not surprising that it has been reported that about 18 % of Ghana’s current Covid-19 cases are in children.
According to the Ghana Health Service through the Director-General, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye “Currently, of the Accra cases, about 18.1% on average are among children aged between 0-15, obviously these are unvaccinated “.
The Pediatrician with Healthy Kids Foundation explained that fortunately, most children with Coid-19 do not record severe illnesses and show mild symptoms but however the danger is them possibly infecting the adult members they come into contact with especially in the home.
She thereby advises parents and guardians to provide their wards with their personal school items and encourage them to try and social distance themselves from mates who are coughing or have cold or other illness as well as adhere to the Covid-19 protocols. Also, parents whose children are unwell should give them medical attention to ensure they are well before sending them to school to avoid infecting others in the school.
“Parents should help build the immunity of their children and the entire family with well balance diets and a lot of fruits that contains Vitamin C” says the pediatrician
By Samuel Afriyie Owusu|3news.com|Ghana