Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said there were 21 con­firmed cas­es of Mul­ti-sys­tem In­flam­ma­to­ry Syn­drome (Mis-C) among in­fants in Trinidad and none in To­ba­go — and all have re­cov­ered.

“I checked with doc­tors (yes­ter­day morn­ing) and there are no fa­tal­i­ties,” Deyals­ingh added in con­firm­ing the sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day.

He said ini­tial­ly there were 29 sus­pect­ed cas­es – 28 in Trinidad and one in To­ba­go.

But the con­firmed num­ber is 21 in Trinidad and none in To­ba­go.

Deyals­ingh was re­ply­ing in the Sen­ate to a query from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark on what, if any, mea­sures are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to re­duce the in­ci­dence of Mis-C among in­fants in To­ba­go.

Deyals­ingh said, “TT is a one coun­try state and this Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to the COVID pan­dem­ic and all health-re­lat­ed mat­ters is and will al­ways be a na­tion­al re­sponse. As such mea­sures to re­duce the in­ci­dence of Mis-C among in­fants is one for Trinidad and To­ba­go. As of March 9, there are no con­firmed cas­es of Mis-C among in­fants in To­ba­go.”

He said to mit­i­gate any risk of oc­cur­rence, all pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties are strict­ly ad­her­ing to the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions, pro­to­cols and guid­ance.

The Min­is­ter added all pa­tients who are COVID pos­i­tive in state quar­an­tine health fa­cil­i­ties are al­so be­ing mon­i­tored to min­imise the risk of ex­po­sure to in­fants. He said all day­care cen­tres and schools were al­so closed last March as were the coun­try’s bor­ders.

Con­tact­ed for fur­ther com­ments yes­ter­day, Sen­a­tor Mark said he was in­formed that 28 chil­dren had been di­ag­nosed with Mul­ti­sys­tem In­flam­ma­to­ry Syn­drome (MIS-C), with one in To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, it is not known if the num­ber in­cludes cas­es dat­ing back to De­cem­ber 5, 2020 – when T&T was first in­formed that the con­di­tion had been di­ag­nosed in three chil­dren who had con­tract­ed the COVID-19 virus.

Ef­forts to seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion on ex­act­ly how many chil­dren have so far been di­ag­nosed; if they have had to be hos­pi­tal­ized; and what their progress re­ports in­di­cate proved fu­tile as calls to Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram went unan­swered.

Re­fer­ring to Deyals­ingh’s dis­clo­sure yes­ter­day, Mark said the min­is­ter claimed that 21 of the 28 are, “in the best of health.”

Pressed to say if any of the 21 are cur­rent­ly hos­pi­tal­ized, Mark said, “He did not say.”

The for­mer House Speak­er said the fig­ures are alarm­ing for lo­cal au­thor­i­ties.

MIS-C in chil­dren is a con­di­tion where dif­fer­ent body parts can be­come in­flamed in­clud­ing the heart, lungs, kid­neys, brain, skin, eyes, or gas­troin­testi­nal or­gans.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tres for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) “We know that many chil­dren with MIS-C had the virus that caus­es COVID-19 or had been around some­one with COVID-19.”

One lo­cal health of­fi­cial be­lieves the fig­ures in this area may be in­creas­ing be­cause par­ents are not as pru­dent in en­sur­ing that chil­dren wear face masks as they should when go­ing out and even at home, es­pe­cial­ly in a set­ting where some­one in the house has con­tract­ed the virus.

MIS-C is said to be ob­served in chil­dren main­ly in ages be­tween six and 14.

Up to De­cem­ber 10, 2020 – T&T was re­port­ed to have record­ed 20 such cas­es – main­ly in chil­dren of African and mixed de­scents.