[ad_1]
Around 1.5 million children under the age of 18 around the world have lost a parent, grandparent or guardian to Covid-19, according to a global study.
Of these, more than a million saw the death of one or both parents in the first 14 months of the pandemic, leading to what one researcher called “the hidden orphanage pandemic”.
Another half a million have died of a grandparent or caregiver living in their own home, according to a study published in the Lancet.
Researchers extrapolated Covid-19 mortality data and national fertility statistics for 21 countries to produce the global estimates.
Dr Susan Hillis, a lead author of the study, from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid-19 Response Team, said: “Our findings underscore the urgent need to prioritize these children and invest in evidence-based programs and services. to protect and support them now and to continue to support them for many years to come – because the orphanage is not going away.
The HIV and Ebola epidemics have shown how to help bereaved children, said co-author Professor Lucie Cluver, University of Oxford and University of Cape Town. “We need to help extended families or foster families care for children, with cost-effective economic strengthening, parenting programs and school access. We need to immunize those who care for children – especially grandparents who care for children. And we have to react quickly because every 12 seconds a child loses his guardian due to Covid-19. ”
The countries with the highest rates of children losing their primary guardian (custodial parent or grandparent) were Peru (1 child per 100, for a total of 98,975 children), South Africa (5 children per 1,000, for a total of 94,625 children), Mexico (3 children per 1,000, totaling 141,132 children), Brazil (2 children per 1,000, totaling 130,363 children) and the United States (> 1 child per 1,000, totaling 113,708 children).
For almost all countries, deaths were higher among men than among women, especially in the middle and upper age group. Overall, up to five times as many children have lost their fathers than their mothers.
Researchers estimate that in England and Wales 8,497 children were orphaned during the pandemic, either because of Covid or because of “excessive deaths”.
Tracey Boseley, Child Bereavement UK’s national development manager for the education sector, said her organization had been inundated with requests from schools asking for help to support bereaved pupils.
Around 20,000 teachers and other school staff have participated in Bereavement UK webinars since April 2020, Boseley said.
It is important to speak honestly to the children who have suffered the loss of Covid, she said. “We try to empower school staff to have honest conversations about death and bereavement because it’s still a bit taboo. There is this idea that we want to protect children, but unfortunately that means children do not have access to the truth and the answers they need and they end up filling the void with their imaginations.
Avoid euphemisms, she advised. “Children are very confused and confused by these. They are told that a deceased family member has become a star, and then they want to know: well, how did it go? What star are they? Sometimes they sit all night waiting by the window. If we tell children that someone has been “lost” they think: why don’t we look for them?
In addition, many children are traumatized by not having the opportunity to say goodbye, not being able to attend the funeral, and struggling to understand what happened. “A number of Covid patients have gone to hospital with breathing difficulties but were still mobile, so there are reports of children looking out of windows watching a parent or grandparent enter the ambulance,” then not being able to see them anymore, then suddenly being told that they are dead, ”Boseley said.
Dr Seth Flaxman, one of the principal authors of the Lancet Study, Imperial College London, said: “The hidden orphanage pandemic is a global emergency, and we can hardly afford to wait. tomorrow to act. The uncontrollable epidemics of Covid-19 are brutally and permanently altering the lives of children left behind. “
There is no quick fix, warned Boseley. “With the right support, children will learn to cope with their grief, but it’s not something that goes away in six months, a year or two years. There is no time limit on this.
[ad_2]
Source link