Covid has caused ‘hidden pandemic of orphanhood’, says global study

1.5 million children lost a caregiver during pandemic, including thousands in the UK

An estimated 1.5 million children worldwide under the age of 18 have lost a parent, grandparent or caregiver due to Covid-19, according to a global study.

Of those, more than 1 million experienced the death of one or both parents during the first 14 months of the pandemic, leading to what one researcher called “the hidden pandemic of orphanhood”.

Another half a million experienced the death of a grandparent or caregiver living in their own home, according to a study published in the Lancet.

Researchers extrapolated Covid-19 mortality data and national fertility statistics for 21 countries to produce the global estimates.

Dr Susan Hillis, one of the lead authors on the study, from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Covid-19 response team, said: “Our findings highlight the urgent need to prioritise these children and invest in evidence-based programs and services to protect and support them right now and to continue to support them for many years into the future – because orphanhood does not go away.”

The HIV and Ebola epidemics have shown how to help bereaved children, said co-author Prof Lucie Cluver, from Oxford University and the University of Cape Town. “We need to support extended families or foster families to care for children, with cost-effective economic strengthening, parenting programs, and school access. We need to vaccinate caregivers of children – especially grandparent caregivers. And we need to respond fast because every 12 seconds a child loses their caregiver to Covid-19.”

Countries with the highest rates of children losing their primary caregiver (parent or custodial grandparent) included Peru (1 child per 100, totalling 98,975 children), South Africa (5 children per 1,000, totalling 94,625 children), Mexico (3 children per 1000, totalling 141,132 children), Brazil (2 children per 1,000, totalling 130,363 children) and the US (>1 child per 1,000, totalling 113,708 children).

For almost every country, deaths were greater in men than women, particularly in middle and older ages. Overall, up to five times more children lost their fathers than lost their mothers.

The researchers estimate that in England and Wales, 8,497 children have been made orphans during the pandemic, either as a direct result of Covid or because of “excess deaths”.

Tracey Boseley, Child Bereavement UK’s national development lead for the education sector, said her organisation had been inundated with requests from schools asking for help to support bereaved pupils.

About 20,000 teachers and other school staff have taken part in Bereavement UK webinars since April 2020, said Boseley.

It is important to talk honestly to children who have experienced Covid loss, she said. “We are trying to empower staff in schools to be able to have honest conversations about death and grieving, because it is still a bit taboo. There’s this idea that we want to protect children, but that unfortunately means that children don’t get access to the truth and the answers that they need and they end up filling the gap with their imaginations.”

Avoid euphemisms, she counselled. “Children get very confused and muddled by those. They are told a family member who died has become a star, and then they want to know: well, how did that happen? Which star are they? Sometimes they sit up all night looking out of the window waiting. If children are told someone has been ‘lost’, they think: why aren’t we looking for them?”

Twin sisters Tripti and Pari, who lost both their parents due to the Covid-19 coronavirus, play with their toys at a relative’s home in Bhopal.

‘My dream was buried’: the children of India orphaned by Covid

Read more

Advertisement

In addition, many children are traumatised at not getting a chance to say goodbye, unable to attend funerals and struggling to comprehend what has happened. “Quite a few Covid patients went to hospital with breathing difficulties but were still mobile, so there are reports of children looking out of windows watching a parent or grandparent walking into the ambulance, and then not being able to see them again and then suddenly being told they are dead,” said Boseley.

Dr Seth Flaxman, one of the Lancet study’s lead authors, from Imperial College London, said: “The hidden pandemic of orphanhood is a global emergency, and we can ill afford to wait until tomorrow to act. Out-of-control Covid-19 epidemics abruptly and permanently alter the lives of the children who are left behind.”

There is no quick fix, warned Boseley. “With the right support, children will learn to manage their grief, but it’s not something that goes away in six months, or a year or two years. There’s no time limit on it.”

”