Hong Kong children urged to get Covid jabs as ‘whole paediatric ward full’

The head of a paediatric infectious diseases unit at a Hong Kong public hospital has said his ward is now full of young, unvaccinated Covid-19 patients, urging parents to get their children inoculated to prevent severe symptoms.

Mike Kwan Yat-wah warned on Saturday that the number of children with Covid-19 had risen significantly recently.

“As a frontline paediatrician, I now notice the number of Covid-19 cases is large,” Kwan, who is also president of the Asian Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases, told a radio programme.

“Before, our ward had no patients with Covid-19, now the whole ward is full of children with Covid cases. Some of them are not severe, but they had a high fever of 39 degrees Celsius for two to three days.”

He added that none of the children had received Covid vaccines.

Kwan urged all parents to take their children to receive jabs, which were “very safe”, as those who contracted the virus for the first time might become severely ill.