This week, a Brazilian doctor said the lack of evidence of COVID-19 keeps artificially low the number of child deaths in the country.
He The BBC reported an estimated 1,300 babies have died from the coronavirus, almost twice as many as official data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, which estimates just over 500 babies have died.
Fatima Marinho, an epidemiologist and senior adviser to the non-governmental organization Vital Strategies, shared her research with the media. He said the lack of evidence makes the true count lower than it really is.
Marinho found that there were ten times more deaths in children due to unexplained acute respiratory syndrome than those reported in previous years, the BBC reported. He estimated that the virus has killed 2,060 children under the age of 9 between February 2020 and March 15, 2021, which includes 1,302 babies.
In contrast, the Brazilian Ministry of Health estimated that 852 children under the age of 9 have died, including 518 babies.
Marinho told the BBC he saw an increase in a disease called multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a rare but serious condition that can cause inflammation of vital organs. The BBC noted that the condition does not account for all the deaths that have occurred.
A study of more than 1,700 children and adolescents led by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the disease appeared two to five weeks after the initial infection.
Approximately 38% of patients who had been born up to 4 years experienced low blood pressure or shock and 44% were admitted to intensive care.
Brazil has been one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The nation has recorded more than 13.6 million coronavirus infections since the pandemic began, just behind India and the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The country has also reported more than 361,000 cumulative deaths, ranking second in the United States alone