At dawn on October 30, the eight-year-old girl Idalia Blandón Zeledón woke up tired. The day before he had a slight burning in his throat and a little cough; nothing to be alarmed about until fatigue was evident. The doctor who treated her in the emergency room was lapidary: “the girl is drowning.”
The child’s saturation dropped to 64. Upon entering the pension clinic in Estelí, where her mother, Marcela Zeledón, is affiliated, the doctors immediately connected her to an oxygen tank and stabilized her. The girl was suffering from severe pneumonia. Their mother asked them if it was covid-19, but they only replied that any respiratory case is suspicious of the virus.
For the next four days, Idalia’s saturation did not show the desired signs of improvement: it ranged from 84 to 89. Doctors warned her mother that “if the saturation did not go up, they were going to intubate her.” Marcela cannot describe what she felt when she heard that her little girl could be connected to a machine. “That pain is inexplicable. See your daughter connected to that oxygen, tired. I just – was – taken from God ”, he relates.
He knelt down and begged for the healing of his daughter, who in her eight years had hardly gotten sick. When he saw that Idalia did not improve, another doctor began to treat her as a covid patient and, on the fifth day after admission, he directed that they perform a PCR test to detect the virus, but the result of the test was kept confidential.
Marcela did not accept that her daughter had been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes covid-19. However, the opinion of independent specialists whom he consulted while the girl was still in the clinic, agreed that it was “covid-19”. It was “horrible” to know that your daughter was completely healthy and suddenly “it gives her that”, she says.
The slightest movement tired Idalia, who also experienced vomiting, a 38-degree fever, cough, and chest pain. Her condition improved and after a week of hospitalization, the doctors released her, stating that she suffered from asthma.
However, Marcela was not convinced with the diagnosis and traveled to Managua to have her daughter examined by a pulmonologist. Again, they performed chest films and various tests that determined that the girl had survived covid-19. He explained to Marcela that there is no respiratory disease, with the exception of covid, that causes a decrease in oxygen saturation of the dimensions that his girl lived. The girl was also examined by a private cardiologist to rule out affectations in other organs.
Parents alert to symptoms of covid-19
Marcela shared her experience on her Facebook profile and received hundreds of comments from parents, who like her, believed that the virus manifested itself in children as a mild flu or, in the best of cases, it went completely unnoticed.
That was the main purpose of sharing his story: to alert parents to take care of their children, not to trust themselves and to go to the doctor at the slightest sign. Marcela still berates herself. She thinks so on Friday, October 29, when her daughter mentioned that her throat hurt, she would have taken her to the doctor, her health would not have worsened.
In Nicaragua it is unknown how many children have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and less how many of the cases have been presented in a moderate or severe way, as happened with Idalia.
Last September, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned that, in the first nine months of the year, more than 1.9 million cases of covid-19 were registered in children and adolescents in the region. PAHO Director Carissa Etienne recalled that minors can develop the serious disease.
Pediatricians and pulmonologists also noticed a growth in pediatric infections during the second wave of infections that affected the country. And although they noted that the symptoms were mild, the protection of children should not be neglected.
Estelí, where Marcela and Idalia live, was one of the areas most affected by covid-19. In August alone, about 280 people died at the San Juan de Dios hospital, medical sources confirmed to CONFIDENTIAL.
Before becoming infected, Idalia led a normal life: I attended face-to-face classes, She played with other children and although their school follows a strict infection prevention protocol, Idalia told her mother that the children shared a snack, and sometimes drank water from the same bottle.
That could have been a contagion route, but Marcela also did not rule out a visit to an amusement park seven days before the first symptoms.
Idalia continues to recover at home, does not attend classes and although the doctors told Marcela that the girl should continue with her normal routine, she admits that she fears a relapse and therefore has strengthened prevention measures. Also, wait a few more weeks to vaccinate her against covid-19.
