By Vivek Singh Chauhan

New Delhi, Jan 8 (IANS): Amid the rise of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, health experts on Saturday warned that this variant may lead children to witness more problems as compared to the Delta variant.

According to experts, the Omicron variant can be more lethal for children as this variant primarily affects the upper respiratory tract and children have higher respiratory rates than adults making them more susceptible to agents in the air.

"Children's respiratory tract is smaller than adults and this new variant is majorly affecting upper respiratory tract among infected patients," Animesh Arya, Senior Consultant in Respiratory Medicine, Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute, New Delhi told IANS.

"Hence it can be said that there are possible chances of children witnessing more problems, which may be of concern but not lethal than adults," Arya added.

Tushar Tayal, Senior Consultant, Internal Medicine, Narayana Superspeciality Hospital, Gurugram said that as compared to previous variants to date this variant is affecting more children in numbers.

The experts said that the symptoms of Omicron in kids are majorly similar to adults like sore throat, mild fever, fatigue, etc.

"We should be more prepared for our children's safety this time. The symptoms present in children are not much different from adults, which includes, cough and cold, fever, etc," Tayal told IANS.

"Parents should make their children stay at home as much as possible, take every Covid-19 related precaution and take good care of their nutrition in order to fight severity if get infected," he added.

According to data from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an average of 672 children were admitted to hospitals every day with Covid-19 during the last week ending Sunday -- the highest such number of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, a study by the CDC said that kids who were infected with Covid-19 had a higher risk of developing new cases of diabetes after their infection.

In India, the Union Health Ministry on Saturday morning said that with 64 fresh Omicron infections being detected in the last 24 hours, the national tally of this highly transmissible Covid-19 variant has mounted to 3,071.

As per the ministry, till now, the infection has spread to 27 states and UTs. However, Maharashtra and Delhi continue to be the worst-hit states.