More and more respiratory infections in small children

Created: 11/25/2022, 12:28 p.m

A patient suffering from respiratory syncytial virus is lying in a children's ward of the Olga Hospital of the Stuttgart Clinic.

© Marijan Murat/dpa

RSV diseases are usually harmless, but the virus can cause life-threatening conditions, especially in infants and small children.

And a wave is currently building up that is already making an emergency medical practitioner speak of “disaster conditions”.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), infections with the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) lead to increased illnesses and hospitalizations, especially among small children.

According to the RKI weekly report on the development of the corona pandemic, the numbers are expected to continue to rise in the coming weeks.

The children's intensive care and emergency physician Florian Hoffmann told the German Press Agency on the development in small children: "It's no longer a curve, but the values ​​​​go up vertically."

In some clinics no free cots

In several federal states, including Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, there is already hardly a free cot in clinics, said Hoffmann, Secretary General of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) and senior physician at Dr.

from Hauner Children's Hospital in Munich.

He spoke of "disaster conditions" - families with sick children sometimes had to sleep on a bunk in the emergency room.

That is a sign of poverty for Germany.

Many affected children are seriously ill and need to be ventilated.

There had already been an unusually high RSV wave in late summer 2021 - but the situation is currently worse, said Hoffmann.

Not only in Germany, but generally in the northern hemisphere, there is a “dramatic epidemic event”.

Hoffmann explained that many children of one or two years of age are affected, who - also in view of the corona pandemic and the measures taken against it - have had no contact with the RSV.

Significant increase compared to the previous week

The current RKI weekly report states that the number of acute respiratory diseases in general has risen significantly compared to the previous week, according to data from the online survey "GrippeWeb".

In the week to November 20, it was around seven million, above the range of pre-pandemic years.

This is also reflected in the recording of patients newly admitted to the hospital with severe acute respiratory infections (sarees): Due to the unusually strong RSV circulation, significantly more cases of sarees are currently being recorded in children up to the age of four than in the pre-pandemic years and in the previous year, as the RKI said.

The saree values ​​are also at a very high level in the following age groups up to 14 years.

Regarding the situation in pediatric intensive care, the Divi wants to present new figures next week in Hamburg - and the associated demands and proposed solutions to improve the care of seriously ill children.

“We won't be able to take care of everyone this winter.

Colleagues all over the country don't know what to do with our little patients," says Hoffmann.

Structures to deal with the situation are not in place and the existing registers for the bed situation are often not up to date due to a lack of time.

"We should now actually activate emergency mechanisms, for example call in nursing staff from adult medicine."

RSV significant in young children

You can get RSV at any age, but the pathogen is particularly important in infants and small children.

It can be a simple respiratory infection, but severe courses up to death are also possible.

The RKI counts, for example, premature babies and children with previous lung diseases as high-risk patients, but also people with immunodeficiency or suppressed immune systems in general.

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The RKI states, citing estimates, that RSV respiratory diseases occur worldwide with an incidence of 48.5 cases and 5.6 severe cases per 1000 children in the first year of life.

Normally, 50 to 70 percent would have had at least one infection with RSV within the first year of life and almost all children by the end of the second year of life.

In the course of the corona protection measures, however, many such infections were temporarily absent.

dpa