Some clinics, says Dr. Margaret Harris, even had a "no touch" policy to help protect health care workers from infection. But this meant some children weren't getting held or loved. "Lots of things that would normally be done for children were not happening," Harris says.
This isolation had devastating psychological and physical effects on children, she says, and contributed to the high death rate seen with children under age 5. About 4 in 5 infected in West Africa died. That rate is higher than what's seen with adults. And it means at least a thousand children have died.
"Children need to be cleaned regularly. They need to be encouraged to eat," Harris says. "If they're not eating and drinking well, they will die very quickly."
WHO wants to do better. So it's currently rewriting the guidelines for treating children with Ebola. "We cannot have a situation where so many children who get infected will die," she says.
[For more of this story, written by Michaeleen Doucleff, go to http://www.npr.org/blogs/goats...ddaughter-from-ebola]
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