According to a recent study published in The Lancet, it was revealed that nearly 1,19,000 children from India, lost their primary and secondary caregivers to COVID-19 in the last 14 months.
As per reports, India ranks third in absolute numbers. Its rate of loss of primary caregiver per 1,000 children at 0.3 was much less than other countries like South Africa (5·1), Mexico (3·5), Brazil (2·4), Colombia (2·3), Iran (1·7), the U.S. (1·5), Argentina (1·1) and Russia (1·0).
Moreover, it was observed that there were up to five times more children with deceased fathers than mothers.
The study funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), stated that 25,500 children in India lost their mother to COVID-19 while 90,751 lost their father and 12 lost both their parents.
The rapid increase in coronavirus-related deaths from February to April, 2021 in India. According to the study, it was associated with an 8·5-times increase in the number of children orphaned or losing caregivers in April as compared to March.
The study also estimates that 1,134,000 children lost a parent or custodial grandparent due to COVID-19. Of these, 10,42,000 children lost their mother, father or both. Most lost one, not both parents.
Globally, over 1.5 million children in 21 countries around the world had lost at least one primary caregiver or a co-residing grandparent.
According to a media release by NIH, overall, 1,562,000 children are estimated to have experienced the death of at least one parent or a custodial or other co-residing grandparent (or other older relative).
The worst affected countries out of the 21 taken into account by the study are Peru, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Iran, the USA, Argentina, and Russia.
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