19 lakh Indian kids orphaned till end of second Covid wave: Study

The Covid-19 epidemic had orphaned more than 19 lakh, Indian children, till the end of the second wave in October, according to a new study that estimated the loss of parents and caregivers worldwide.

The estimate for India is over 12 times higher than the official count of 1.47 lakh such children recorded by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights based on data shared by the states and union territories through the official channels.

In the study, published in The Lancet: Child and Adolescent Health on Thursday, an international team estimated that more than 12.45 lakh Indian children in the age group of 10-17 years lost either their parents or caregivers in addition to 4.05 lakh such kids in the 5-9 years group and 2.66 lakh in 0-4 years group. Nearly 15 lakh lost their fathers and four lakh their mothers.

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Globally over 50 lakh children have lost a parent or caregiver due to Covid-19 since March 2020, as per the study that used data up to October 2021 – prior to the emergence of the Omicron driven waves in several countries including India.

India tops the chart in absolute numbers, but estimated orphanhood cases per capita showed the highest rates were in Peru and South Africa, with 8 and 7 out of every 1,000 kids affected respectively. India comes at the fourth spot in all three age brackets.

Last month in an affidavit, NCPCR said the maximum number of orphaned children are between the age group of eight to 13 years (59,010), followed by children in the age group of 14 to 15 years (22,763), age group of 16 to 18 years (22,626) and four to seven years (26,080). The count is based on children's data uploaded on an official portal from April 2020 onwards.

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The new Lancet estimate is an update of a previous study by the team using new excess death and Covid-19 death data that came from 21 nations including India, Peru and Poland.

With new mortality data, the group led by researchers at the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention at Atlanta, USA and Imperial College, London carried out back calculations for the original 14-month period (March 1, 2020–April 30, 2021) and did new calculations for the subsequent 6-month period (May 1–Oct 31, 2021)

Estimates of the numbers of children affected by Covid-19 associated orphanhood and caregiver death nearly doubled in the six months from May 1, 2021, through October 31, 2021, compared with the amount after the first 14 months of the pandemic (between March 1, 2020, and April 30, 2021).

By Oct 31, 2021, 50 lakh Covid-19 had occurred, and roughly 52 lakh children lost a parent or caregiver. “This finding means that, globally, for every reported Covid death, at least one child experienced orphanhood or caregiver death,” the team reported.

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For regions with higher total fertility rates, such as the African, Eastern Mediterranean, and South-East Asia, the numbers of children affected by orphanhood and caregiver deaths exceeded numbers of Covid-19 deaths.

According to the study, the increases in South East Asia were linked to devastating surges and new excess death data for India.

The new Covid-orphan data comes in the backdrop of multiple research studies estimating in excess of 30 lakh Covid deaths in India even though the official toll stands at just over 5 lakh.

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