Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID-19 education emergency has not affected all children equally. Refugee children already faced significant barriers in accessing good quality learning because of poverty and discrimination. The pandemic has further compounded these challenges. Progress under threat highlights the impact this pandemic is having on refugee children, including in the ten countries with the largest refugee populations where Save the Children works. Refugees are much less likely to access remote learning, will have lost many months of learning and may drop-out of school. The pandemic has severely impacted their learning and wellbeing, which was already more complex than their host community peers due to the very nature of forced displacement.

Across the globe and in Africa, COVID 19 has spread rapidly. A series of measures have been implemented across countries that include school closures, home isolation and community lockdown. This resulted in secondary social and economic impact on children an their households. This reflection report for Save the Children’s West and Central Africa region is developed to highlight the impact of COVID 19 on children based on the global research data, secondary resources and made policy recommendations and asks going forward.

This policy brief proposes reforms in primary and secondary education as developing Asia copes with the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). It explores blended learning modalities that can be applied beyond the pandemic.

The  suspension  of  in-person  classes  as  a  consequence  of  the  COVID-19  pandemic  profoundly  affected  the  education  systems  in  Latin  America  and  the  Caribbean  (LAC) and compromised the achievements reached around the goals established in the SDG4-Education 2030 Agenda. This report analyzes the possibilities, restrictions and needs that the countries of the region will face during the process of returning to in-person classes, considering five dimensions:  (i)  safe  schools  (school  infrastructure,  access  to  water  and  sanitation);  (ii)  human  resources  (principals  and  teachers);  (iii)  access  to  ITC  and  connectivity;  (iv) education financing and (v) information and planning.

In Mongolia, following school closures and term break from February to September 2020 affecting more than 600,000 children, the Government put learning at the heart of reopening, dedicating the first month of the new school term to the assessment of learning and remedial lessons and activities. UNICEF supported the Ministry of Education and Science in the development and distribution of teacher guidance for remedial classes covering all core subjects from pre-primary to upper secondary.

This is the third annual report jointly written by United Nations agencies on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular SDG 2 – Zero Hunger) and the World Health Assembly 2030 targets for nutrition in the Asia and Pacific region. The first part of this report tracks progress on key SDG 2 indicators and World Health Assembly targets up to 2019. The second part of the report focuses on challenges and possible solutions to improve maternal and child diets in the Asia and Pacific region.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, children with neurodevelopmental disabilities could not attend their usual rehabilitation therapies, with a consequent reduced support of developmental process and risk of worsening of their clinical conditions.

The frequency of vaccine refusal, which is associated with many factors, is increasing worldwide. The aim of this study was to predict the frequency of vaccine refusal against domestic and foreign COVID-19 vaccines and identify the factors underlying refusal.

Public health responses often lack the infrastructure to capture the impact of public health emergencies on pregnant women and infants, with limited mechanisms for linking pregnant women with their infants nationally to monitor long-term effects. In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in close collaboration with state, local, and territorial health departments, began a 5-year initiative to establish population-based mother–baby linked longitudinal surveillance, the Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies Network (SET-NET). The objective of this report is to describe an expanded surveillance approach that leverages and modernizes existing surveillance systems to address the impact of emerging health threats during pregnancy on pregnant women and their infants.

Lockdown, isolation, quarantine and social distancing are proved to be only effective measures to prevent and tackle COVID-19 till date. Unfortunately, these measures have caused physical, economical and mental health problems. Children and adolescents are not immune to the adverse mental health effect due to the new changes. Research around the globe shows children and adolescents are suffering from an increased number of depressive symptoms, clinginess, inattention, irritability and worry. This cross-sectional online-based survey type study was aimed to get a snapshot of the prevalence of predictive psychiatric disorders in the child and adolescent population in Bangladesh before and during lockdown.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic affects medical care worldwide, including patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Thus, we aimed to assess its impact on health care provision, fear of infection, adherence to medical treatment, and compliance with preventative instructions in children and adolescents with IBD.

Widespread access to digital and social media has drastically altered the nature of youth’s interpersonal connections. In this context, the opportunities children and adolescents have to help people around them are rapidly evolving. This article reviewed emerging literature on how digital media influences youth’s prosocial development in new ways. Then it proposed the next steps for advancing the field’s understanding of youth’s prosocial behavior in the digital age.

COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection, is mild to moderate in the majority of previously healthy individuals, but can cause life-threatening disease or persistent debilitating symptoms in some cases. The most important determinant of disease severity is age, with individuals over 65 years having the greatest risk of requiring intensive care, and men are more susceptible than women. In contrast to other respiratory viral infections, young children seem to be less severely affected. It is now clear that mild to severe acute infection is not the only outcome of COVID-19, and long-lasting symptoms are also possible. In contrast to severe acute COVID-19, such ‘long COVID’ is seemingly more likely in women than in men. Also, postinfectious hyperinflammatory disease has been described as an additional outcome after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here our current understanding of the immunological determinants of COVID-19 disease presentation and severity is discussed, and it is related to known immune-system differences between young and old people and between men and women, and other factors associated with different disease presentations and severity.

As we enter 2021, the world continues to grapple with containing the deadly spread of the COVID-19 virus. And education continues to be the silent victim of this pandemic. Save Our Education Now sets out five, evidence-based actions that governments should prioritize to ensure that children whose education has been disrupted by the pandemic can safely return to school and catch up on the learning they have missed out on. Our new analysis suggests that just over US$50 billion is needed from donors to implement these actions and protect the futures of the most marginalized children from the pandemic. 

This paper reports a study with families of children with disabilities in Uganda during the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, known as COVID-19. Families of children with disabilities in Uganda are well informed about COVID-19 and try to follow prevention measures. Families of children with disabilities have difficulties meeting daily basic needs as they were unable to work and had no income during the COVID-19 related lock down. The COVID-19 response affects access to health and rehabilitation services for children with disabilities in Uganda. Parents of children with disabilities struggle with home education and learning due to lack of access to accessible learning materials and learning support in Uganda. The COVID-19 response affects the peer support networks and social support for parents of children with disabilities in Uganda. Children with disabilities and their families should be involved and considered in the development and implementation of the COVID-19 response.