Doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta are seeing as many as 100 children per week with respiratory ailments, as a virus has sickened more than a thousand children in 10 states.
The culprit is believed to be the human enterovirus 68, which is related to the rhinovirus that causes the common cold. Some symptoms have been so severe the children have required mechanical ventilation, said Dr. Andi L. Shane, medical director of hospital epidemiology.
Cases have been confirmed in Missouri and Illinois, and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman said the agency is testing to see if the virus also caused illnesses reported in Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah. One hospital, Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, Mo., treated nearly 500 children and some required intensive care.
The illness appears to be limited to infants and children up to 14, with well over half having a history of asthma or wheezing, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the head of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, on Monday.
Children coughing or wheezing should see a doctor immediately to head off the illness, Schuchat said. Enterovirus 68 was first identified in California in 1968 but is very rarely reported in the U.S, she said.
“We don’t know as much as we’d like to know but believe it is spread the way other viruses are spread” she said in a telebriefing with the media.
Since asthma has been identified as a factor in reported cases so far, Schuchat said children with asthma and other health problems are especially at risk. Although there is no vaccine or specific treatment for it, she said enterovirus 68 typically causes illness that subside in about a week with no lasting problems.
At Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, doctors said that during the second and third weeks in August, the number of patients who tested positive for the rhinovirus/enterovirus jumped to about 100 per week from about 15-20 during most of July.
Tests CHOA does capture all enterovirus and rhinovirus infections, not just enterovirus D 68, Dr. Shane said. “Taking this into account we are seeing a two- to fourfold increase in the number of children in our system with respiratory infections,” Shane said. “Based on what other children’s hospitals are seeing around the country, we suspect that the increase in respiratory infections is likely also the result of enterovirus D 68 infections.”
Shane said viral testing may benefit children who have moderate to severe upper respiratory illness, to ensure their symptoms are attributable to this circulating enterovirus and not to another condition which needs treatment, such as pertussis or influenza.
“We don’t want people to be overly concerned, but if their children are having difficulty breathing, they should be evaluated right away,” Shane said.
State education department officials, as well as officials in the Atlanta, Clayton and Gwinnett school districts, said they were unaware of any cases Monday. Some metro Atlanta districts were checking with their medical staffs to see if any cases were reported.
CDC officials said people should follow the usual common-sense steps to prevent spread of the virus such as washing hands and disinfecting often; keeping asthma under control and preventing other respiratory infections.
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