Chandigarh: Death of three-day-old baby remains a mystery

CHANDIGARH: The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown up many mysteries in the city. The death of a three-day-old baby, the youngest so far, and a mother not turning positive despite taking care of a Covid-positive baby were some of them. The baby from Dadumajra had died on May 24 last year. Her parents and relatives had tested negative. Certainty eludes about her source of infection.


The incident took place when there was not even a whisper about community transmission PGI doctors believe the newborn had Covid, while the source of infection might have been her mother, where there is a possibility that she could have turned negative after a week or some health worker might have passed on the infection.

This unusual incident became a case report and was published by Drs Kanya Mukhopadhyay, Ashish Agarwal, Veena Laxmi,Gursimran Kaur Mohi, and Lakshmi PVM from the department of paediatrics, department of virology and department of community medicine and school of public health, PGI.

PGI was one of the centres of the ICMR’s national trial for convalescent plasma therapy. In the ICMR plasma therapy study for use in COVID, which was withdrawn after WHO’s Solidarity trials. The same was published in the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ). The city has planned to start a plasma bank and had in fact, cured few patients during the trial using the therapy.

With a global debate raging on the safety and efficacy of anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for prevention and treatment of Covid, PGI has also conducted research. It was inferred that there was a significant risk reduction in the incidence of Covid-19 among participants who received post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) with HCQ. However, the interim analysis of the “Solidarity” clinical trial done by the WHO had recommended not to use HCQ for Covid therapy as it did not have any mortality benefit.