A doctor in Brazil this week said that the lack of COVID-19 tests artificially maintains the decrease in the number of deaths among infants in the country.
The BBC reported that about 1,300 children died from the coronavirus, almost twice as many as official data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, which estimates that just over 500 children died.
Fatima Marinho, epidemiologist and senior adviser to the non-governmental organization Vital Strategies, shared her research with the press. She said the lack of testing keeps the actual number lower than it really is.
Marinho found that there were 10 times more deaths in children due to unexplained acute respiratory syndrome than those reported in previous years, the BBC reported. She estimated that the virus killed 2,060 children under the age of 9 between February 2020 and March 15, 2021, which includes 1,302 children.
Instead, the Brazilian Ministry of Health estimated that 852 children under the age of 9 died, including 518 children.
Marinho told the BBC that he had seen an increase in a condition called multi-system inflammatory syndrome, a rare but serious condition that can cause inflammation of vital organs. The BBC noted that the condition did not take into account all the deaths that occurred.
A study of more than 1,700 children and adolescents led by researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the condition appeared two to five weeks after the initial infection.
Approximately 38% of newborn patients up to 4 years of age had low blood pressure or shock, and 44% were admitted to intensive care.
Brazil was one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The nation has had more than 13.6 million coronavirus infections since the pandemic began, behind only India and the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The country also reported more than 361,000 cumulative deaths, second only to the United States.