UN warns virus putting children `in jeopardy’

The U.N. chief said in a video statement Thursday that the lives of children “are being totally upended” by COVID-19, with almost all students out of school, family stress levels rising as communities face lock-downs, and reduced household income expected to force poor families to cut back on essential health and food expenditures, “particularly affecting children.”

April 17, 2020 / 08:42 IST

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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is warning that the coronavirus pandemic is putting many of the world’s children “in jeopardy” and is urging families everywhere and leaders at all levels to “protect our children.”

The U.N. chief said in a video statement Thursday that the lives of children “are being totally upended” by COVID-19, with almost all students out of school, family stress levels rising as communities face lock-downs, and reduced household income expected to force poor families to cut back on essential health and food expenditures, “particularly affecting children.”

Guterres said “children have so far been largely spared from the most severe symptoms of the disease.”

But with a global recession gathering pace, he said, “there could be hundreds of thousands additional child deaths in 2020.”

That estimate came from a 2011 paper by three economists who investigated the impact of “income shocks” on infant mortality, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said.

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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The secretary-general launched a report on risks children face which said 188 countries have imposed countrywide school closures, affecting more than 1.5 billion children and young people. It also said nearly 369 million children in 143 countries who rely on school meals for daily nutrition must now look to other sources.

AP News

first published: Apr 17, 2020 08:42 am

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