Two pediatric groups in the country believed that the real state of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) among Filipino children has yet to be seen.

“In the Philippines, we still don't have a national data reflected on the true incidence of COVID-19 in Filipino children. Most of our data come from hospitalized, confirmed COVID-19 disease,” said Pediatric Infectious Disease Society of the Philippines (PIDSP) President Dr. Mary Ann Bunyi during an online forum on Thursday, Aug. 12.

“In the real setting, most of the mild respiratory infections in children are sufficiently managed in an outpatient setting, skipping the test to determine whether the child has COVID or none,” she added.

This was also echoed by the Philippine Pediatric Society (PPS).

“The statistics that are being presented are all hospitalized statistics. We are not getting the real picture as to the milder versions of COVID-19,” said PPS Public Relations Committee Chair Dr. Maria Carmela Kasala.

“Right now, I feel that we are getting an underreporting here of COVID-19 (among children),” she added.

As of August 8, a total of 176,540 Filipino children aged 19 and below contracted COVID-19, including 466 deaths, based on the data of the Department of Health (DOH).

The PIDSP encouraged local government units (LGUs) to also cover children in their respective testing initiatives.

“It would have been helpful if the LGUs can push for that-- if they have adequate testing or sufficient supply of RT-PCR--- then that would be very ideal,” said Bunyi.

“In order to improve our landscape of COVID-19 among Filipino children, it will be helpful to capture these children with mild respiratory symptoms by testing them for COVID-19, especially if there’s a background of close contact or exposure to household members who have been suspected or have been confirmed of having COVID-19 disease, or if he is residing in a high risk transmission community,” she added.

Bunyi believes that some parents are apprehensive in getting their children to be tested because of the cost of COVID-19 testing.

“For me it is more (on the side of) economics because everyone would like to know whether their household members have been infected or not. It is just that there is a cost in doing the RT-PCR test. Imagine if you have five family members--how much does it cost.... it ranges from P3,500 to P8,000 per test,” she said.

Recently, there have been reports that the incidence of COVID-19 among children is increasing.

The DOH said that an increase in COVID-19 cases is being experienced across all age groups and not just among children.