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Wagamaga OP t1_j1z3b78 wrote

In the first two years of the pandemic, 40,830 children and teenagers lost their mothers to COVID-19 in Brazil. The conclusion is from an unprecedented study carried out by researchers from Fiocruz and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), released by the Observatory of Children’s Health (Observa Infância). The article with the results was published with open access (12/19) in the Springer Nature Journal Archives of Public Health.

According to Observa Infância’s coordinator Cristiano Boccolini, one of the study's authors, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of Brazilian children and teenagers requires the urgent adoption of intersectoral public policies to protect childhood. “Considering the health and economic crisis settled in the country, with the hunger returning, the increase in food insecurity, the growth of unemployment, the intensifying employment insecurity and the growing line for admission to social programs, it is urgent to mobilize society for the protection of childhood, with priority attention to this group of 40,830 children and teenagers who lost their mothers to COVID-19 in the first two years of the pandemic," says the Fiocruz Public Health researcher.

“Certainly the death of a parent, particularly the mother, is bounded to lifelong adverse outcomes and has serious consequences for the family's well-being, profoundly affecting the family structure and dynamics. Orphaned children are more vulnerable to emotional and behavioral problems, which requires intervention programs to mitigate the psychological consequences of orphanhood”, states Celia Landmann Szwarcwald, a researcher at the Information and Health Laboratory of the Institute of Scientific and Technological Communication and Information in Health (ICICT/Fiocruz).

https://portal.fiocruz.br/en/news/observatory-childrens-health-brazil-has-more-40000-covid-19-orphans

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