Surge in Respiratory Disease Hits Patrick Henry High, Floods Lady ER

The alarming spike in respiratory illnesses at San Diego’s high school and the area’s only children’s hospital is strong evidence that a severe flu season has arrived earlier this year.

About 1,000 of the 2,600 students at Patrick Henry High School in San Carlos were absent Wednesday, most of them said to have fallen ill the week after the homecoming weekend. Hundreds of school officials told parents in a notice that they had tested negative for coronavirus infection, prompting public health officials to suspect the unprecedented outbreak was caused by influenza. says there is. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) may also play a role.

San Diego County Deputy Public Health Officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser said his office monitors outbreaks because of their sheer scale. , no school reported that 40% of students were ill.

The global public health community has been warning for months that the United States could enter a particularly severe flu season after serious bouts of flu-related illness flooded Australian hospitals over the summer. .

“It’s pretty amazing to see this in October,” Kaiser said. “The majority of children are doing well, but if there’s a large flu outbreak in your local high school, it’s probably happening elsewhere in your community.”

Officials said they were looking for similarly high numbers of absentees at other local schools, but had not yet been informed of other cases.

“There is no reason to believe it is purely limited to them.” Kaiser Said.

Already, the region’s total flu cases for the season, which began on July 1, is a whopping 1,000 confirmed cases so far. , 304 cases were recorded, compared with an average of 22 over the previous five years.

And it’s not just the flu that’s raging right now.

Laddi Children’s Hospital is also experiencing an unexpected spike in the number of children arriving at emergency departments with runny noses, coughs, sneezes, fevers and shortness of breath on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

These children have tested negative for COVID-19, according to Dr. John Bradley, director of the Rady’s Division of Infectious Diseases, but most are confirmed to be infected with respiratory syncytial virus. Commonly known as RSV, the virus is one of several viruses that cause the common cold, but it can be more serious in some, especially young children.

Bradley said the hospital has received about 250 infants with RSV infection, who have developed lower respiratory tract infections and, in some cases, viral pneumonia, requiring supplemental oxygen therapy.

RSV is highly contagious and is known to cause rashes in sick visitors during the winter months, but Bradley said such violent early arrivals are very rare. rice field.

“In my 34 years here, I’ve never seen a volume like this in October,” says Bradley. “It’s the kind of thing you might see in January when the flu is prevalent, but not in October.”

Bradley said about 20 percent of children admitted to Rady’s intensive care unit on Wednesday were admitted for severe respiratory distress caused by RSV-related lung inflammation.

People with milder respiratory problems receive supplemental oxygen for about two days, while those in intensive care need additional “positive pressure” to reopen the lung passages. He said he was prone to lung damage or neuropathy.

“All they need is oxygen and a little pressure to help expand their lungs, and they’ll be fine,” Bradley said, adding that less than 10% of children with RSV are in need of intensive care, he added.

As to why RSV has so quickly and violently attacked local children, Bradley said it could be a more aggressive strain of the virus circulating this year. But his COVID-19 pandemic, which kept young children at home for the first few years of their lives, may also have played a role.

RSV is known to be the most common cause of hospitalization for pneumonia in children, he says, and the first or second infection is most likely to be severe. After the immune system has had a few chances to fight off the virus, symptoms become more cold-like for the rest of a person’s life.

Children who spent their first few years in preventive isolation for COVID-19 did not get RSV in their first or second year of life and now get it when they reach preschool age. .

“From a birth cohort perspective, children who have never had RSV in the community today are probably two to three times more susceptible,” said Bradley. “Once they get infected, this spreads to their older siblings, so we not only take in a lot of infants, but also a lot of older children with asthma and other underlying conditions.”