Calls increase for provincial support to help ease pressures at McMaster Children's Hospital.The cause remains unclear, though it's thought to be an overactive immune response. In the meantime, as scientists are scrambling to understand the current viral landscape, other theories attempting to explain the ongoing pediatric health-care crisis involve potential immune system impacts from prior bouts of COVID-19, perhaps in line with already-documented post-COVID health issues.Īfter getting infected with SARS-CoV-2, some children face a serious condition known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C. "Next year we would expect a smaller wave if most kids get exposed this year," Bowdish said. That could partially explain this year's return of RSV, and the aggressive start to the flu season not long after. Lower transmission years are typically followed by a stretch of more aggressive transmission, due to the loss of immunity across an entire community, she said. Their 2021 study, published in the scientific journal JAMA, suggests a certain level of predictability, said University of Alberta infectious disease specialist Dr. One team of Canadian researchers analyzed more than a decade of respiratory virus seasons, alongside mathematical modeling for possible future seasons, and found "striking regularity" in how multiple viruses alternated between mild and severe winter peaks, year by year. Emergency supply of kids' meds is coming amid national shortage.With flu now firmly back in the mix, alongside a slate of respiratory infections including COVID, co-infections might also be a factor in rates of severe disease, said Dawn Bowdish, an immunologist with McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. ![]() Notably, by that point, influenza still hadn't fully resurfaced, with just a slight rise in cases quite late into the typical flu season. Virus transmission ebbs and flows each yearĬanada eventually experienced a mid-pandemic spike in RSV cases in early 2021 - but it didn't lead to the current level of hospital pressure. "For many months, Canada has seen virtually no cases of RSV infection, which may mean that pregnant women and infants have had lower exposure and therefore pediatric immunity levels may be low," the group wrote, adding a resurgence in cases could stretch resources in pediatric intensive care units across the country. It's a situation several Canadian scientists warned about in a commentary on RSV published back in July 2021 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. That means more people are susceptible to infection in the first place, and those that do get infected don't have as many antibodies to slow the virus down, and mothers who weren't exposed recently aren't transferring as many antibodies to their infants through breast milk, Bhattacharya explained. Ontario pediatric ICUs operating above capacity, provincial data shows.There's a population-wide impact from skipping a year of infections, he said, since the immune system's antibody production after an RSV infection drops off fairly quickly. Immunologist Deepta Bhattacharya, a professor at the University of Arizona, said RSV cases fell to very low levels in 2020, "presumably because of COVID mitigations" - a range of precautions that included social distancing, mask wearing, and widespread lockdowns during which a significant portion of the workforce began working from home. When it comes to the pressure from RSV, an infection so widespread that most people catch the virus by the time they're toddlers, there may be a ripple effect from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. ![]() While scientists say it's difficult to know the full answer, they do have a few theories. What's less clear is - why are there so many sick kids, all at once? It's clear health-care workers are scrambling to care for "unprecedented" levels of seriously ill young patients, with some Canadian facilities now resorting to surgery cancellations and patient transfers in order to make space. Influenza is also spreading widely, and earlier than usual. Pediatric hospitals remain under intense pressure in Canada amid a resurgence of childhood respiratory viruses, ongoing shortages of children's pain medication, and the return of the annual flu season.Īcross the country, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections are above expected levels for this time of year and keep increasing, federal data shows.
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