Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
More than 1,000 US children have been hospitalized due to a mysterious respiratory illness believed to be caused by a pathogen related to the one that causes the common cold, and 10 states have contacted the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for help in the matter, various media outlets have reported.
According to Gillian Mohney and Dean Schabner of ABC News, the disease has not yet been identified, but health officials believe the cause is human enterovirus 68 (EV-D68), which the CDC said is related to rhinovirus – the most common viral pathogen and the predominant cause of colds in men and women.
As of this past weekend, the states that had contacted the federal public health institute were North Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas, said Kimberly Ruble of the Guardian Liberty Voice. In Missouri, approximately 450 children had to be hospitalized with the illness, with 60 requiring intensive care, and a high number of potential cases have also been reported in Ohio, Colorado and Illinois.
“Viruses don’t tend to respect borders,” explained ABC News Chief Health and Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser. “It is only 10 states now, but it’s going to be across the country. So if your state doesn’t have it now, watch for it, it’s coming. This is a very common time for outbreaks. Kids come back to school, they like to share things, they bring them home to their little brothers and sisters, and enteroviruses tend to occur in the summer.”
Besser said that doctors “have no idea” why this particular strain of enterovirus, which is said to be extremely rare, surfaced this year. He added that officials at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Denver told him over 900 pediatric patients with symptoms typical of the respiratory virus were treated by emergency room doctors between August 18 and September 4, and that 86 of those children had to be admitted to the hospital.
What are the symptoms of this disease? According to CNN’s Jethro Mullen, the symptoms of most enteroviruses are “like a very intense cold” – a sentiment echoed by CDC virologist Mark Pallansch, who said that these types of microbes are responsible for most bad summer colds. There are over 100 different types of enteroviruses, he said. They cause between 10 and 15 million infections in the US each year, peaking during the month of September.
The current concern is related to the rareness of this particular type of enterovirus, as well as the high number of hospitalizations associated with respiratory ailments this season, Mullen said. He explained that EV-D68 has been sending over 30 children per day to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, and officials at that medical facility report that nearly 15 percent of those youngsters have been placed in intensive care.
“It’s worse in terms of scope of critically ill children who require intensive care. I would call it unprecedented,” said Dr. Mary Anne Jackson, a director for infectious diseases at the Kansas City hospital, which has treated approximately 475 children in recent days. “I’ve practiced for 30 years in pediatrics, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”
Experts cannot say for sure why EV-D68 has surfaced this year, but William Schaffner, head of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University, said there isn’t too much cause for concern. Even though the enterovirus “causes prominent respiratory symptoms,” he said the good news is this disease is rarely fatal.
“Most enteroviruses cause either a little bit of a cold or a diarrheal illness – a few cause meningitis. This one is the, if you will, odd cousin. It causes prominent respiratory symptoms. Why it does that, we’re really not sure,” he told CNN. “All of these folks are going to get better. Some of them have more severe illness, such as these children who have developed asthma and are hospitalized. But they should all get better.”
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