These are the words of pediatrician Joana Martins, one of the child-health experts interviewed by Expresso for an article about how ‘confinement and measures of prevention of the pandemic have weakened the immune system, making us (all) more vulnerable to infections.

“The effects are most obvious in children” whose immune systems are in the making.

Children need to come into contact with dirt (or put more scientifically: bacteria, microorganisms, viruses in general) in order to build immune systems that will carry them through the rest of their lives.

“All the sanitary measures necessary in a pandemic” have meant that this very necessary contact has been massively reduced, pediatrician Mário Cordeiro tells the paper, leading to babies and toddlers particularly becoming dangerously ‘vulnerable’.

Ironically, the youngest members of society – the one’s born during the pandemic – are now at risk from a respiratory virus (VSR) that is potentially much more harmful for them than SARS-CoV-2.

While SARS-CoV-2 infection will rarely develop in children into any serious form of Covid-19, VSR can precipitate acute bronchial infections that can see them having to be admitted into hospital.

And this is what has already started happening.

Read full story: Portugal’s children are “suddenly becoming ill all at once” – Portugal Resident