More than 56,000 children in SA tested positive for Covid-19 since March

More than 56,000 South African children have tested positive for Covid-19 since the outbreak in March this year.

Quoting the National Institute for Communicable Diseases' statistics in its latest report on the affect of Covid-19 on children in SA, the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) said on World Children's Day on Friday that children made up 8% of the more than 750,000 confirmed cases in SA.

Most of the 56,434 children were adolescent girls.

However, children getting sick and spreading the disease was just the tip of the iceberg, Unicef said in its reported, titled “How Covid-19 is changing childhood in South Africa: Responding and reimagining for every child”.

The report revealed how Covid-19 presented multiple challenges for children in the country as their safety, nutrition and health have been compromised, while their education has been disrupted.

The report found:

• An estimated 2.2 million jobs were lost between April and June in SA – lost livelihoods that have a direct affect on children.
• Remote learning exposed the digital divide, as only 11% of young people reported access to a laptop and internet, according to a Unicef SMS U-Report survey.
• During lockdown, routine immunisation coverage dropped to a worrying low of 61%.
• Childline SA reported a 67% rise in calls for help during lockdown, compared with the same period last year. 

Unicef warned that children and young people should not be forgotten and unseen casualties of Covid-19.

The agency's SA representative Christine Muhigana said the lives and future of children across SA were being threatened by the Covid-19 crisis.

“We need to collectively respond to the immediate issues affecting children, while tackling the deep-rooted problems in the country. Only then can we reimagine and realise a better future, for every child,” she said.

Unicef has called on the government and the private sector to respond by guaranteeing access to nutrition and health services and making vaccines affordable and available to every child, increasing access to safe water and hand hygiene, reversing the rise in child poverty and ensuring an inclusive recovery for all.

It also aims to ensure that all children learn by closing the digital divide, supporting and protecting the mental health of children and young people and bringing an end to abuse, gender-based violence and neglect in childhood.

“Our collective response must also tackle some of the deep-rooted issues in the country, only then can we reimagine and realise a better future, for every child,” said Muhigana.

She said Unicef SA’s response was aligned to the UN’s emergency Covid-19 response plan and works across the sectors of health and nutrition; water, sanitation and hygiene (Wash); education; child protection; and risk communication and community engagement.

In its response about 164,000 children were receiving health care services, including immunisation, prenatal, postnatal, HIV and gender-based violence care in facilities supported by Unicef and at least 20,000 children were assisted with online counselling, referrals and information for their physical, emotional and psychological health.

To improve hand hygiene, 130 handwashing stations with soap were erected across nine provinces, with the distribution of 10,000 Wash kits.

Child-friendly safe standard operating procedures, videos and mass media work on staying safe at school reached 21 million people, through school distribution, public service broadcast announcements and via the Children’s Radio Foundation, the organisation said.

Through the "Tshwaragano ka Bana: Let’s play, learn and grow together" series, early childhood development learning materials reached more than 683,000 parents and about 940,000 children younger than five. 

TimesLIVE