10-month-old Tamil Nadu's youngest COVID-19 patient recovers

Chennai: Tamil Nadu’s youngest COVID-19 patient, a 10-month-old baby boy, and her doctor-mother were discharged from a government hospital in Coimbatore on Monday evening after being recovered from their illness.

Treating the baby and his mother for coronavirus was seen as a challenge to the doctors due to the tender age of the former. The discharge of the baby boy and mother duo within 14 days of their admission to the hospital will light up hopes of recovery from COVID-19 amid the gloom.

The mother, a 29-year-old doctor with the Southern Railways, the baby, his grandmother and their housemaid tested positive for COVID-19 on March 29. The doctor contracted the virus from a 63-year-old man, a contact of the two Thai nationals after she treated him at the Railway Hospital in Erode in the third week of March.

All four and a 25-year-old woman student from Coimbatore left the ESIC Hospital on Monday after recovery. This takes the number of people discharged from hospitals in Tamil Nadu after the recovery from COVID-19 to 13.

“The mother herself is a doctor and the monitoring mechanism was very tight when it came to the baby because of the tender age. We took special care to monitor every movement of the baby and check his symptoms constantly. We are happy we could help the baby and his mother recover in a short time,” Dr A Nirmala, Dean of the ESIC Hospital, told DH.

Children develop immunity power only as they grow in age and treating a baby as young as 10-month-old for COVID-19 was quite challenging, doctors who treated the duo said.  

Talking about the treatment, the dean said the doctors took special care in providing nutrition supplement to the baby and his mother as diet plays an important role in recovery. “Besides the nutrition supplement and constant monitoring, we continued with the regular antibiotics that we give to patients of COVID-19. We are glad that both recovered, and we were able to discharge them in 14 days of their admission,” Dr Nirmala added.

Though discharged from hospital, the 29-year-old mother and her 10-month-old son will be home quarantined for 14 days as per the standard protocol to be followed by all COVID-19 patients. The young doctor is the first medical professional in Tamil Nadu to have contracted COVID-19 while on duty.