On Thursday 17 February 2022, Luxembourg’s Minister of Health, Paulette Lenert, met with the Ombudsman for children and youth (Ombudsman fir Kanner a Jugendlecher - OKaJu), Charel Schmit and Ines Kurschat, to discuss COVID-19 impact on children and young people in Luxembourg.
The main exchanges concerned the current situation of the pandemic among children and young people in Luxembourg: the sharing of clinical data; comorbidities of COVID-19; vaccination according to the profile in children. To date, 4,849 children between the ages of five and twelve have been vaccinated with the full schedule and 31,133 children between the ages of twelve and eighteen have a full vaccination schedule (including 14,678 children with 'booster dose').
Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, more than 145 children have been hospitalised at children's hospital (Kannerklinik) with acute COVID-19, more than half of whom were infants and newborns. Fifteen school-aged children were admitted to hospital because of multisystem inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19 infection, commonly known as “PIMS”. So far, no deaths have been reported.
The mental health of children and young people was a major concern raised during this meeting. Thus, actions on the mental state of children and young people will be carried out during the development of the next National Mental Health Plan. In addition, the National Health Observatory will be responsible for closely monitoring the evolution of the mental health of children and young people. In this context, Minister Lenert stressed the importance of developing a patient pathway for this target population.
Another point raised during the exchanges was the management of care and health for young people. The situation and future development of children's hospital (Kannerklinik), the reference establishment for paediatrics in Luxembourg, was also discussed.
