Micha, three months old, has already spent ten days in the Kiev Pediatric Infectious Disease Hospital due to pneumonia.

Gnawed by anguish, her 29-year-old mother said she lost seven kilograms.

Reserved for children suffering from Covid, this 100-bed establishment is seeing an increasing influx of young patients suffering from serious respiratory disorders.

In the spring, "a third of the patients needed oxygen, today it is two-thirds", notes Vitali Yevtouchenko, a 49-year-old infectious disease specialist.

Because the new wave, which began this fall, is due to the Delta variant, which is more contagious and, according to doctors, more dangerous for children.

It was also favored by a lagging vaccination in a country, among the poorest in Europe, with a failing health system.

With 769 deaths, this former Soviet republic was among the three countries in the world with the most deaths in their latest daily reports on Wednesday, behind the United States and Russia.

A woman holds an oxygen mask over the face of her baby suffering from Covid-19 at a children's hospital in Kiev, November 16, 2021 Sergei SUPINSKY AFP

The new wave also caused the first deaths from Covid-19 among pediatric hospital patients: two babies and a disabled eight-year-old boy.

"The treatment did not work", notes Alina Riazanskykh, head of the intensive care unit, 32 years old.

The public authorities are basing their hopes in an acceleration of vaccination to stem the epidemic.

Reluctance to vaccines

And while more and more people are getting immunized, especially due to restrictions on the unvaccinated, to date less than a third of adult Ukrainians have received both doses.

A child sick with Covid-19 breathes with an oxygen mask in a children's hospital in Kiev, November 16, 2021 Sergei SUPINSKY AFP

It is in this context that President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Monday the next payment of around 35 euros to the vaccinated.

"It is a normal practice, respectful towards the people", estimates the doctor Yevtouchenko.

He also pleads for the vaccination of children.

This has been authorized for a month in Ukraine for minors aged 12 to 17 with Pfizer / BioNTech.

But so far, only some 30,000 young people have received at least one dose, the health ministry told AFP.

Mother of a hospitalized child, Sasha Voïtenko, 23, now plans to be vaccinated "quickly" after leaving the hospital with her one-month-old daughter Eva.

A woman holds an oxygen mask over the face of her baby suffering from Covid-19 at a children's hospital in Kiev, November 16, 2021 Sergei SUPINSKY AFP

But the idea of ​​immunizing children remains unpopular.

Vaccinated herself, Oksana Potaptchouk, a 32-year-old manicurist, has been in hospital for three days with her eight-year-old son Roman, annoyed by his oxygen mask and the incessant blood tests.

Closed schools

For her, there is no way her 12-year-old daughter will receive the injection.

"I have not seen reliable studies on these vaccines," proclaims the young woman.

A child sick with Covid-19 breathes with an oxygen mask in a children's hospital in Kiev, November 16, 2021 Sergei SUPINSKY AFP

Lilia Gorodskykh, whose 2-year-old son is in intensive care with pleurisy, is among the few pro-vaccines.

"We're going to vaccinate him in all likelihood" if he becomes eligible, said the 27-year-old teacher, comforting her tearful boy.

Out of 3.3 million coronavirus infections recorded in Ukraine since spring 2020, almost 180,000 cases, including 288 fatalities, have concerned minors.

To curb the spread of the virus among children, Kiev city hall ordered schools to close in early November, angering many parents.

Doctors are happy to do so.

A doctor leaves a specialized unit where patients suffering from Covid-19 are treated in Kiev on November 16, 2021 Sergei SUPINSKY AFP

"We are feeling the effect," said Riazanskykh, whose intensive care unit now has only one patient for every six beds, even though they were all occupied last week.

The director of the hospital, Tetiana Kaminska is therefore concerned about the reopening of schools announced for Monday.

"We'll see what happens in a week. There will most likely be another outbreak."

© 2021 AFP