KOLKATA: A team from the National Council for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has arrived in West Bengal to assess the situation as the number of fatalities of children brought to hospitals with Adenovirus-type syndromes is rising.

The central team is expected to meet with the senior state health department officials and to pay a visit to the hospitals where the reported deaths of kids with similar symptoms have occurred.

The central teams' visit comes a day after Sudeshna Roy, the chair of the West Bengal Commission for the Protection of Children's Rights (WBCPCR), and Ananya Chakraborty Chatterjee, the commission's advisor, visited two hospitals in Kolkata that were reporting child deaths and assessed the situation.

Following a study of the situation, both acknowledged their satisfaction with the infrastructure and medical care provided by the hospitals' paediatric departments where they paid a surprise visit. Each of them asserted that during the past few days, the rate of admissions accompanied by severe symptoms has decreased. They made the unexpected visits to Calcutta Medical College & Hospital and BC Roy Children's Hospital, two state-run hospitals.
By coincidence, hospitals in Kolkata have reported the most cases of child fatalities. The state health department attributes this to an increase in district hospitals sending children with symptoms their way.

As per the US National Library of Medicine, adenovirus can cause "severe, life-threatening" sickness even in youngsters who had previously been healthy. Adenoviruses are frequently passed from one person to another through coughing, sneezing, touching, or shaking hands.

Adenovirus infections cannot be treated with any currently available antiviral drugs or techniques. Although there is an adenovirus vaccine, only US military members are allowed to use it.

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