Govt lays out procedure to rehabilitate children who lost parents to COVID

Advising the public to refrain from engaging or encouraging such action, which is in contravention to legal provisions, the WCD Ministry has laid out lawful procedure of rehabilitation of children who lost their parents to COVID-19.

PTI

May 17, 2021 / 13:17 IST

The ministry has said that the child who has lost both parents to COVID-19 ought to be produced before the District Child Welfare Committee (CWC) within 24 hours, excluding the journey time.

The government has laid out a procedure for rehabilitation of children who lost their parents to COVID-19. The public notice by the Women and Child Development Ministry comes amid reports that several messages offering children, who have lost their parents to COVID, for adoption are circulating on social media.

Advising the public to refrain from engaging or encouraging such action, which is in contravention to legal provisions, the WCD Ministry has laid out lawful procedure of rehabilitation of children who lost their parents to COVID-19.

The ministry has said that the child who has lost both parents to COVID-19 ought to be produced before the District Child Welfare Committee (CWC) within 24 hours, excluding the journey time.

"The CWC shall ascertain the immediate need of the child and pass appropriate orders for rehabilitation of the child, either to restore the child to caregivers or place her/him in institutional or non-institutional care, on case to case basis," the WCD Ministry said in a public notice.

The ministry further said that effort will be made to sustain the children in their family and community environment as far as possible, while ensuring their safety in their surroundings and safeguarding their interest, as prescribed under the Juvenile Justice Act.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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