13-year-old boy with COVID-19 found abandoned in Kolkata

A 13-year-old boy holding a COVID-positive report has been found abandoned at Sealdah station in Kolkata amid a devastating second wave of infections in India.

Officials and volunteers spent several hours on Monday searching for the parents before transferring him to a safe home in the capital of West Bengal, the Times of India reported.

“The incident has highlighted the fear and ambiguity within a section of the society that could force the family to abandon the minor after he tested positive for coronavirus,” the ToI said.

Citing a Child Line official, the newspaper said that the boy’s condition was stable and efforts were on to track his family.

After getting a call, the officials found the boy sitting on the stairs.

One of them said the boy from a slum was brought to the station by his father and an NGO. The man works in Sealdah and the child often stays at a daycare run by an NGO.

Recently, the father asked the NGO to keep the boy with them for some days. The NGO conducted an RT-PCR test on the boy and the result came positive, the official said.

“The father was unwilling to take him home and the NGO contacted Child Line and brought him to Sealdah. But by the time our officials could intervene, the father and the NGO official had left without the boy,” the ToI further quoted the official as saying.