TIG Post

Tag: Children

  • Coronavirus: Children half as likely to catch it, review finds

    Children and adolescents are half as likely to catch the coronavirus, the largest review of the evidence shows.

    The findings, by UCL and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, will feed into the debate about how schools are reopened.

    Children also appear less likely to spread the virus, but the team said there was still uncertainty on this.

    The UK government is expected to publish its scientific advice on schools later.

    However, only England has announced that some primary children (Reception, Year 1 and Year 6) could return to the classroom, sparking concerns about safety.

    It is already clear that children are at far less risk of becoming severely ill or dying from coronavirus.

    The researchers went through 6,332 studies from around the world – much of it not formally published – to try to get the answers. They identified only 18 with useful data.

    These were a mixture of studies that tested how the virus spreads in schools or households through rigorous testing of contacts, as well as studies that test large numbers of people in a population for the virus to see who is carrying it.

    The analysis showed children were 56% less likely than an adult to catch the virus when exposed to an infected person.

    “Teachers worry about their children and I think it is incredibly reassuring the children they teach are half as susceptible to this virus,” said Prof Russell Viner, from University College London and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

    However, the reason why is not clear.

    There have been discussions about differences in children’s lungs that make it harder for them to catch the virus or that they are exposed to more colds that are related to the coronavirus, which might lead to some degree of immunity.

    Can children spread coronavirus? The evidence was less clear-cut about how easily children spread the virus. For example, one study of 31 clusters of infections showed only three (10%) were started by a child. The equivalent figure in influenza is 54%.

    However, the researcher said if children were less susceptible to the virus, they are also less likely to be the major source of infections.

    Prof Viner added: “This supports the view that children are likely to play a smaller role in transmitting the virus and proliferating the pandemic, although considerable uncertainty remains.”

    He refused to be drawn directly on the political decision of reopening schools, but said he would be concerned if all the focus was solely on the health impacts to adults “and the harms to children of staying off school were devalued and not playing into the equation”.

    The advice given by the UK government’s scientific advisors, called SAGE, is due to be published later.

    However, the rival group called “Independent SAGE” has published its opinion, saying schools should not re-open until there is the ability to track the spread of the virus and test anyone coming into contact with infected people.

    It also said the risk to pupils would be halved if reopening was delayed by two weeks as a result of cases reducing further.

    Boris Johnson has indicated that 25,000 contact tracers, able to track 10,000 new cases a day, would be in place by 1 June.

    Sir David King, who leads the group, said: “It is clear from the evidence we have collected that 1 June is simply too early to go back, by going ahead with this dangerous decision, the government is further risking the health of our communities and the likelihood of a second spike.”

    Source: bbc.com

  • Don’t allow your children to sell on the street Deputy Minister

    Mrs. Freda Prempeh, the Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, on Monday advised parents and guardians not to allow their children and wards to hawk and sell on the streets to protect them from contracting Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

    She also urged them to teach their children proper handwashing with soap.

    Mrs. Prempeh who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tano North indicated that children were vulnerable and allowing them to hawk and sell sachet water and other items on the streets exposed them to avoidable dangers.

    Speaking in an interview with the GNA on the sidelines of a short presentation ceremony at Goaso in the Asunafo North Municipality, Mrs. Prempeh indicated that though children had strong immune systems to fight diseases, parents must also restrict their movements so that they would not be contaminated.

    The Ahafo Regional Coordinating Council presented items such as Veronica buckets, washing bowls, medicated soaps, litter bins and sanitizers to the Municipal/District Assemblies in the Region to be distributed to public institutions to aid hand washing.

    Mrs. Prempeh applauded the level of public education on the COVID-19, and commended President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for measures put in place to control the spread of the disease.

    She said public education and precautionary measures on COVID-19 must be extended and intensified in rural communities to protect rural dwellers as well.

    Mrs. Prempeh said Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) should also not be left out or neglected from the public education on the disease and called on the Municipal and District Assemblies to ensure that education on COVID-19 go down well with them.

    The MP said she had bought 5,000 sanitizers and 100 Veronica buckets and soaps to be distributed in her constituency.

    Mrs. Prempeh called on the media to be circumspect and ensure that their publications on the COVID-19 did not stigmatize infected people.

    She also urged Assembly Members and traditional authorities to collaborate with health services to help improve on sanitation in the localities.

    Mr. Evans Opoku-Bobie, the Ahafo Regional Minister, emphasised that the RCC would monitor and ensure that the items were being used to benefit the general public.

    Source: GNA

  • Teach children their mother tongues Pencils of Promise, World Vision

    Two Non-Governmental Organisations, Pencils of Promise (POP) and World Vision have marked this year’s International Mother Language Day celebration in the Volta region on the theme “Indigenous languages matter for development, peace building, and reconciliation”.

    International Mother Language Day marked 21 February is an annual celebration inaugurated by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1999, aimed to celebrate and project local dialect worldwide.

    The Krachi West Municipal Director of Ghana Education Service, Mrs. Georgina Mensah in her speech during the event held in Ho, indicated that children are fast in understanding lessons when they are been taught in local dialects and show interest and self-esteem in their academic activities.

    She said in her area, literacy among learners has improved at the basic schools because of the use of local dialect to teach the children, hence, its prudent to equip the pupils with their mother tongues.

    “Education especially literacy in the lower grades is very successful, now most children can read…” she said.

    She called on both government and non-government institutions to use the day to promote and outline policies to “support mother language”.

    The Volta regional Chairman of the Ghana Journalists Association (GIJ), Mr. Kafui Bells Kanyi shared his experience using his local dialect (Ewe) as a Journalist and called for the need to always use mother language.

    He encouraged radio stations in the Volta region to do programmes in local languages as a measure to promote and project it.

    A representative from International Child Development Program (ICDP), Ghana, Ms. Joyce Lanyo bemoaned that, foreigners who visit Ghana are always eager to learn indigenous languages but Ghanaians rather feels shy to use the mother tongues.

    “When foreign volunteers come, the first thing they want to learn is the local language why is it that we are throwing that away?” She quizzed.

    She praised musicians who uses their songs to project mother languages and made reference to Amakye Dede and Ofori Amposah as agents to promote the agenda.” Ms Lanyo promised the organisation’s support to promote the use of mother languages.

    The Country Director of Pencils of Promise, Mr. Freeman Gobah, who spearheaded the event in an interview with Class News urged parents to allow their children to speak the local dialect while learning the international ones.

    The celebration was climax with a panel discussion on how to promote the local languages, and ended by encouraging educational institutions, parents and other stakeholders to make use of the local dialects.

    Source: classfmonline.com

  • One in four African children live in conflict zones – Report

    About 170 million children live in conflict zones across Africa – equivalent to one in every four African children – the highest absolute number of any region in the world, according to a report by Save the Children, a non-governmental organisation.

    The report, released Thursday, noted that while fewer children are living in conflict-affected areas, those who do run the highest risk of falling victim to serious violence since records began.

    “Successive generations of children across the continent have grown up knowing nothing other than conflict, including in the three West and Central Africa countries who are included in the list of the top ten worst conflict-affected countries to be a child – the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, and Nigeria,” it stated.

    According to available data, in conflict situations, girls were far more likely to be raped or fall victim to other forms of sexual abuse than boys – 87 per cent of all verified cases involved girls, while 1.5 per cent of the sexual violence targeted boys. In 11 per cent of the cases the sex of the victim was not recorded.

    The report quoted an eight-year-old victim of sexual abuse from the DRC narrating her experience.

    “It was a Thursday night, while I was playing with my friends, a group of four men emerged from the mountains,” the child, from the region of North Kivu, said.

    “One of them kidnapped me and drove into the field, and there he forced me to sleep with him. After doing what he wanted, he left. I was left alone in the field. I felt very bad. I couldn’t stand myself anymore. A gentleman who was passing by found me and brought me home.”

    According to the report, over 10,200 schools are closed across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, the DRC and Chad, depriving over two million children of an education.

    “Children have nothing to do with the causes of armed conflicts, yet we are the ones most affected by it – exposed to hunger and disease, displaced, tortured, killed, sexually abused, deprived of education, trafficked, separated from parents, recruited as child soldiers,” the report quoted Purity, 14, a girls’ rights advocate from Nigeria, as saying.

    “When will children’s suffering end? Leaders should understand that if we are not heard today, we cannot speak tomorrow.”

    Vishna Shah, Regional Head of Advocacy, Campaign for West and Central Africa at Save the Children, said in times of crisis, children are more vulnerable to marriage as families turn to coping mechanism to survive.

    “These young girls who are forced into marriage are instantly robbed of their childhood, many have to drop out of the education system and are locked into a lifestyle where they have limited decision making power and mobility,” she said.

    “Data also showed that 90 per cent of births to adolescent girls occur within a child marriage and in conflict situations.

    “Girls often have limited opportunities to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and also have inadequate access to essential services such as antenatal care and assisted childbirth. More needs to be done to urgently protect girls from early marriage- this means increased investment in programmes and increased data to better understand the reality of the situation.

    “It is time for world leaders to fully play their role as protectors of children and future generations by putting in place policies and practices for the best interest of children first.”

    As of 2019, 101 states had endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, committing to keeping schools safe during conflicts. Fourteen of the states are in West and Central Africa, including the DRC, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, and Burkina Faso.

    The report said more needs to be done to support children in recovering from conflict, and suggested that the proportion of humanitarian funding aimed at the protection of children must increase from 0.5 to 4 per cent.

    “In DRC, for now just $3 is available per child in humanitarian child protection funding,” stated the report.

    “The funding will be both for mainstream and targeted programmes on gender equality, the empowerment of girls and sexual violence in humanitarian settings as well as education in emergencies.”

    Source: allafrica.com

  • Dont keep hearing-impaired children at home – Parents advised

    The Headmaster of the Research Utilisation School For the Deaf (RUSFORD) in Obuasi, Mr Agyemang Prempeh, has appealed to parents with hearing-impaired children not to delay in sending them to school.

    He said the delay in sending those children to school affected their ability to learn and also delayed their progress in life.

    Aside from that, he said the school found it difficult to control the grown-up children and believed that had an effect on their education.

    Challenges

    In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mr Prempeh said the use of sign language to teach had a serious effect on the ability of the students to acquire more fluency in the English Language as not all the words could be intepreted through sign language.

    He believed that if the children were brought to school early and introduced to the sign language and taught how to read, they would be in a position to deepen their understanding of the English Language and also improve their vocabulary.

    Another challenge facing the school, he said, was the lack of sign language teachers.

    That, he said, had compelled the school to merge some of the classes to enable one teacher to take care of more than one class.

    According to him, when that happened, “attention is more devoted to one class than the other and this does not help the other class”.

    Appeal

    Currently, Mr Prempeh said, the school had only seven teachers taking care of all pupils from Primary One to the JHS level and, therefore, appealed to the government for assistance to recruit more teachers to help provide basic education to the children.

    He said all the teachers at the school were not on salary and shared the meals prepared by the school with the students.

    According to him, the fees the school charged the pupils were not enough to pay teachers but just to feed the pupils and pay for utilities.

    That was because, Mr Prempeh said, if the school was to charge commercial rates, most of the pupils would not be able to attend as their parents were poor and that would deny them of their right to education.

    Rusford

    The Research Utilisation School For the Deaf is one of the few schools in the country devoted to providing education to the speech and hearing-impaired people in society. It is located at Ahasonyewodea in the Obuasi Municipality of the Ashanti Region.

    It currently hosts 40 pupils and offers them basic education up to the JHS level, after which they are transferred to either the School of Deaf at Jamasi in the Ashanti Region or the Akropong School of the Deaf in the Eastern Region.

    The Proprietor of the school, Ms Genevieve Basigha, who is deaf and dumb, started the school in 2008 together with her late husband to provide education for the deaf and dumb within the area.

    Her school got nominated for the 2017 edition of the Season Three episode of the Heroes of Change and she eventually emerged the overall winner.

    Through the prize, she moved from the wooden structure to a more permanent facility befitting the status of a school and to also provide a conducive environment for teaching and learning.

    That notwithstanding, the school still needs assistance with teachers to produce holistic education to the children.

    Currently, the school has only seven teachers who are all volunteers and not on any salary. They share the same meals provided by the school for the pupils. Some of the classrooms have to be combined to enable the teachers to attend to all the pupils.

    Source: Graphic.com.gh