COVID-19: The coronavirus pandemic, which started more than two years ago, has caused mass deaths and left the world in a blanket of despair. Now, a new modelling study, published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health journal and accessed by financialexpress.com, has estimated that across the globe, over 5.2 million or 52 lakh children have experienced the death of a parent or a caregiver due to COVID-19 so far. In fact, as per estimates, between May 1, 2021, and October 31, 2021, the number of children who were affected by either orphanhood or death of a caregiver due to COVID-19 was almost equal to the figure that had been recorded in the first 14-month period of the pandemic – between March 1, 2020, and April 30, 2021.
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What’s more is that the modelling study has also suggested that of the children orphaned during COVID-19, about 67% are adolescents between the age of 10 and 17 years. The study also corroborated the experience of orphaned children with the evidence that more men were at the fatal end of COVID-19. Globally, around 75% of the children who witnessed the death of a parent due to the pandemic lost their father to the disease.
The study added that children who had suffered from the loss of parents or caregiver are more vulnerable to poverty, sexual violence or abuse and exploitation, apart from mental health issues, severe distress as well as HIV infection. In some situations, they might also end up being involved in violent extremism or gangs.
With this study, the researchers have suggested that programmes be urgently started to include orphaned children into response efforts relating to the pandemic. Some of the suggestions of such programmes that they put forth included providing greater community and family support, avoiding institutional care for such children and ensuring economic strengthening.
The research studied 20 countries, including India, and the study authors believe that the nations can provide aid to affected children by tailoring their responses according to their circumstances as well as age.
Lead author Dr Susan Hillis said, in a statement, that they have estimated that a child has orphaned or lost a caregiver for every person who has been reported to have died due to coronavirus. This means that every six seconds, a child is facing this situation that can adversely impact their life in absence of appropriate timely support, she said.
Meanwhile, lead author Dr Juliette Unwin said that even though the estimates are high when it comes to children being left orphaned or without a caregiver, the actual figure is likely to be higher, and these numbers are expected to increase as more data about deaths due to COVID-19 becomes available worldwide.
Before the pandemic struck the world, 140 million children were estimated to have been living as orphans. Then, a study published in July last year had revealed that between March 2020 and April 2021, COVID-19 pandemic had left 1.5 million children without a parent or a caregiver. The new study has now recalculated the figure and estimated that during that time, over 2.7 million children had been left orphaned.
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They then extended their study to October 2021, making their study period span across 20 months. For this entire period, the researchers have estimated that while over 3.36 million children experienced the loss of a parent, an additional 1.83 million children suffered from the loss of a grandparent or an adult caregiver who lived in their own home. This brought the overall affected children to 5.2 million, while the COVID-19 deaths recorded globally during this period stood at 5 million.
Senior author of the study Prof Lorraine Sherr said that while HIV/AIDS left 5 million children orphaned over a period of 10 years, COVID-19 pandemic reached this figure in just two years, not counting the latest wave of Omicron.
The study stated that in India, the number of children impacted were over 1.9 million. Meanwhile, this figure was 2,400 in Germany. According to per capita statistics, Peru and South Africa had the highest estimates of orphanhood cases, with 8 out of every 1,000 children having been affected in Peru, and 7 out of every 1,000 children in South Africa. Moreover, in every country, more children witnessed the loss of a father than those who lost a mother.
