COVID-19: Three-month-old baby put on ventilator in Oman, first case of its kind

Dubai: A three-month-old baby has become the first infant in Oman to be put on ventilator due to being infected with COVID-19, Sultan Qaboos University Hospital announced yesterday.

"We have received children infected with COVID-19 earlier, but this case is considered the first because the child is on ventilator where the child does not take the appropriate amount of oxygen even with the machine," said Dr. Badr Nasser Al Ghailani, Head of the Intensive Care Department at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital. "We try to remove the child from the machine, but the child’s body is small and do not have the ability to depend on herself for breathing," he added.

100 per cent

"The total number of patients at ICU has exceeded 250, and this number has not been seen before," said Dr. Saif bin Musabah, Senior Consultant at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital. "The situation in the university hospital is like the situation in the rest of the hospitals in the regions of the Sultanate, where the occupancy rate in intensive care beds is almost 100 per cent, and sometimes we have to transfer patients from the hospital to other hospitals in case they need a ventilator."