Corona in Southeast Asia: Children are the ones who suffer

Low vaccination rates, rising death rates: Southeast Asia has been hit hard by the corona pandemic. Children are often the victims. More and more of them are becoming ill, orphaned or even abused.

Grandmother Zubeida has lost her granddaughter. Shilova from Bekasi, Indonesia, died as a result of Covid-19. “Now I’m alone. I’m lonely without her. I see her picture and I’m sad. She was funny, everyone liked her.”

The number of corona deaths is increasing in Southeast Asia, and with it the number of children who have died. The vaccination level is still very low, especially in those countries that were only very slightly affected at the beginning of the pandemic. And that’s why the Delta variant hits all the harder here – in the Philippines, Thailand or Malaysia. But Indonesia has the highest number of infections and deaths in the region. And so the risk of children being infected by unvaccinated adults is also very high.

You could protect yourself less, says the Indonesian epidemiologist Masdalina Pane: “Because there aren’t enough masks for toddlers and babies. They also don’t understand that they should always wash their hands well and not touch their faces.” That is why Pane believes that society and the authorities should not only pay attention to the elderly and the weaker, but also to children. “Because there is still no vaccine with which we can protect younger children.”

Underdeveloped children are at risk

Indonesia has 121,000 corona deaths, more than 1200 of them are children. And medical professionals observe the highest increase among the under-year-olds. Healthy children are generally considered to be more resistant to Covid-19 than older people with previous illnesses. But in poorer countries, many children are malnourished and underdeveloped, and they don’t have much to counter the virus. The epidemiologist explains: “Especially the delta variant has to be met with perseverance. But underdeveloped children don’t have that.”

A mere eleven percent of Indonesians are fully vaccinated, the majority of them with Sinovac, which is not as effective as other vaccines. In Malaysia, a third of the population is vaccinated, but here the number of diseases continues to rise every day – including those of infected children who need treatment, say doctors.

The risk of child abuse is growing

In the Philippines, children were finally allowed to go outside again at the beginning of July to play and to go to school. But because of the increasing numbers due to the delta variant, they have to stay at home again.

That also leads to a higher risk of child sexual abuse, protection organizations say. According to Unicef, a large part of the child pornographic material traded worldwide on the Internet is created in the Philippines, often by one’s own family. And without teachers and friends, children have no contacts, no way to ask for help.

Many corona orphans

As long as the pandemic continues and Southeast Asia has so few vaccinations to counteract the virus, children in particular will continue to suffer. They lose their educational opportunities, their innocence, their lives, their parents: The number of Corona orphans is also increasing.

“The next day I went to the Covid cemetery, only with the closest family, their parents, their brother. Only the four of us buried them.” Shilova, Zubeida’s beloved grandchild, has turned four, according to her grave tablet. A simple wooden plaque in a row of many in the new Corona cemetery, where graves are constantly being excavated. The excavators do not stand still.

With material by Sandra Ratzow, ARD-Studio Singapore