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Background: The pandemic has put at risk the social and emotional development of children on account of the paucity of arenas for social interaction. This study from Kerala, India was conducted to assess the resilience factors, behavioural concerns, psychological distress symptoms among the children aged 3 to 5 years. We also tried to look into the lost opportunities that could have aided the social and emotional development of children like peer interaction, child care hours. Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted among the children aged 3 to 5 years. A total of 535 children attending the immunisation clinics were enrolled by consecutive sampling. Devereux Early Childhood Assessment P2 (DECA P2) questionnaire was used to assess the levels of resilient factors and behavioural concerns in the study population. Results: We observed a high proportion of children in the area of need category of protective factors under DECA P2. The proportion of children falling under area of concern was 64.5%, 49%, 68.4% for attachment/relationship, self-regulation, and initiative respectively. 24.9% study subjects have a behavioural concern score that puts them in the area of need category. The logistic regression model we created identified 'Male Gender,' 'Mothers could spend only less time for child care' and 'electronic devices used as pacifier' as significant predictors for belonging to Area of need Behavioural Concerns T score category. Conclusion: A large proportion of children aged between 3 to 5 years with reported behavioural concerns and lack of protective factors for socioemotional development. This can be attributed partly to the ongoing pandemic and its associated restrictions. The increased child care hours invested by parents or grandparents could have sized down the full impact that the pandemic would have had on the socio emotional development of the child. Increased time spent using electronic devices coupled with dwindled opportunities for interaction with peers have been notable challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Low immunization coverage in India attributes to many factors including sociodemographic factors and people's behavior. COVID-19 pandemic resulted in disruptions in achieving optimum availability and utilization of immunization services. This study was carried out to find out the immunization status of children in the post COVID era and various factors responsible for non-immunization during the pandemic. Methods: This cross-sectional study included parents of 225 admitted children aged 1–6 years were interviewed using a semi-structured open-ended questionnaire. Children were classified as completely immunized, partially immunized and unimmunized on the basis of vaccines missed given under first year of life. Reasons for non-immunization and delay/missed vaccination during COVID-19 pandemic were recorded. Results: Of the 225 children, 162 (72%; 95% CI 66–78%) were completely immunized, 55 (24.4%; 95% CI 19–30%) were partially immunized and 8 (3.6%; 95% CI 1–6%) were unimmunized. Parents with hospital deliveries, higher education level and lesser birth order were more likely to have children with better immunization status (p < 0.05). First dose of measles scheduled at 9 months and 3rd dose of pentavalent vaccine/OPV/Rotavirus vaccine scheduled at 14 weeks were most commonly missed vaccines among partially immunized. Lack of awareness (n = 36, 57.1%; 95% CI 45–70%) was the common reason for partial and non-immunization followed by illness of child (n = 21, 33.3%; 95% CI 21–45%) and COVID-19 pandemic (n = 11, 17.4%; 95% CI 8–27%). Pandemic was reason for delay in 50 (22.2%; 95% CI 17–28%) children. Restrictions of movement (64%; 95% CI 50–78%), fear of being exposed to COVID-19 (52%; 95% CI 38–66%) were the most common reasons for delay during the pandemic. Of the 50 children who had delay due to pandemic, 39 children (17.3%; 95% CI 12–22%) received their catch-up immunization after the pandemic. No child remained completely unimmunized due to COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: Although COVID-19 pandemic resulted in disruptions in routine immunization services, sociodemographic factors such as awareness for immunization, parental education and various beliefs for immunization were responsible for the children remaining unimmunized or partially immunized after the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction is presented to the article "Leaving no one behind on the road to Universal Health Coverage: The Kerala story." which appeared in the July 09, 2024 issue.